Give Me 5 Minutes And I’ll Show You How To Get What You Want Out Of Life

I’ve gotten in a rut lately. I’m not particularly motivated and each day is blending quietly into another. Some of this is due to the cold of winter settling in and some due to allowing each day to be easy and repeatable.  Ever go through these phases in life?

I’ve decided to give myself a serious attitude adjustment by understanding my daily habits and finding out how they REALLY make me feel. Do they motivate me? Inspire me? Make me content? Am I learning? Do I find meaning in what I do? This weekend I’ve visited my Dad, slept in a bit, read a few books, downloaded some new music, and wrote this article. Here is what I’m looking for.

Contentment. We usually refer to this as happiness, but I like the word contentment. It’s that fuzzy warm feeling, like a warm blanket wrapped around you on a cold day while reading a good book.

Meaning. Is what I’m doing providing me meaning? Will it benefit me long term?

Knowledge. Am I learning from this activity? Is it opening my eyes to new things?

Pride. Am I proud of what I’m doing? Do I feel accomplishment?  Is it making me better as person?

Inspire. Am I being inspired and motivated by my actions and behaviours?

Love. Am I becoming a more loving person?

Now I’ll list a few things I’ve done this weekend and rate them from a scale of 1-10.

Visiting my Dad.  Love -10. Pride -8,

Writing this article. Meaning -10. Pride- 10,  Inpsire- 10, Meainng -10

Sleeping in.  Pride 3, meaning 2,

Hmm, I did not work out, slept in and procrastinated on a few household tasks I was supposed to do.

As you can see certain activities are high and provide me with what I really want out of life. Some are showing that I’m wasting my time.

I challenge you to take a good look at your life and begin to see what daily habits are benefiting you the most both short and long term. List out these values and rate yourself. You may get your ass off the couch and begin to start building the life you really want.

I’m going to build a work sheet in the future for all of you to use.  I think it’s a fabulous idea.

Please retweet this article to all your good buddies  : )  Thanks!!

Don’t Think About It Just Do It

The moment we make a life change decision our mind gets in the way.

Excuses , self doubts, rationalizations all creep into our heads to try and stop us from achieving our goals.

I’ll get to it tomorrow.

It wasn’t a great idea anyways.

It’s not THAT important, I’ll get tested next year.

You are stronger than your mind. You are smarter than your mind. Don’t listen to it and just do it.

Lace up your running shoes. Throw that extra money into savings. Don’t buy the sweets. Leave the office at a regular hour. Call up your friend.

Ignore it, don’t argue, just do it. You’ll see it makes all the difference in the world.

2 Simple Ways To Reduce Stress and Find More Joy

As we drown in information overload and stay glued to our computers we live an increasingly unnatural life.  There is no way our brain can keep up with the amount of information we are subject to every day.

The amount of electronic devices that deliver information to us grows at an incredible rate. We have smart phones, tablets and don’t forget the lowly personal computer. Many people own all three devices. Billions of websites and hundreds of thousands of apps offer every imaginable type of information at the touch of our fingertips.

We text and Facebook our friends at an astonishing rate , spreading ourselves thin while losing those deep personal friendships that face to face camaraderie creates.

And don’t get me started about business productivity. We all know we are meant to produce at a high rate while the bulk of us don’t receive a raise near the rate of inflation.

Humans are meant to connect with nature. We need to find time to disconnect from the smart phones, take a walk in the woods, breath and clear our minds. I take a walk at lunch every day to get out of the office and see the horizon of the sky expand before me. I always come back in refreshed. I try to walk the dog as much as possible in the woods near my house.  Slowing down the information being thrown at us and reconnecting with nature is a simple change, yet is surprising how it puts a smile on your face and lifts a weary heart.

Seek true friends you can be honest and genuine with. I’m not sure if Facebook or texting is the best way to forge a deep friendship. Having heart to heart talks and opening up to someone, as well as having a shoulder to lean on, is essential to being a happy and well adjusted human being. Without close friends life is that much tougher and uncertain. Deep friendships allow us to express our fears, share laughs and celebrate victories. So the next time you think about texting or Facebooking how about meeting up for supper instead?

Less stress, more joy. It just takes a small effort every day.

Using The 80/20 Principal To Create A Fabulous Life

At work we achieve our highest value 80% during 20% of our time.  In our personal lives we are happiest and add 80% of greatness to ourselves, family and friends, 20% of the time.

If 80% of our time leads to only 20% of our most happy times, what can we do to better use our time?

I want you to really think about this now.

What activities bring you the greatest happiness? Why aren’t you focusing on these activities? Is watching television really bringing you happiness? What activities can you cut out?

Think about it. Start doing the things that truly make you happy right now.

List them out and make them lifetime habits.

5 Ways To Reduce Stress And Find Joy And Be More Optimistic.

Stop paying attention to bad news. Get off the Internet. Read a book. Find the simple joys in life. Take in the cool crisp air of the morning. Don’t let the media influence your morning. Tune out. Find the beauty in life. Chop all the bad news out and you’ll find slices of joy you never knew existed!

Meditate. Find peace in the present moment. Learn to still your chattering mind.  There are so many ways to meditate these days. There is the traditional method of sitting still and paying attention to your outer breath.  Or download an app for your smart phone. I recently downloaded “ Meditation 4 Inner Wisdom” and loved its relaxing flow.

Don’t worry about stuff you can’t change. Work is incredibly demanding these days. Greece is falling apart. Winter is coming. I can either let these stressors roll around in my head like a mouse on a flywheel or pay attention to what I CAN change. What can you change in your life? Write it down and start making those changes. Let the rest of it go. Are you worrying about stuff you cannot change?  Let it go today and change what you have control over.

Exercise. I’ve been trying to lose 20 pounds with no results. I eat well but haven’t been eating fewer calories. Simple math. If I wish to continue to eat the same amount of calories I HAVE to exercise more. Today I got back on the elliptical running machine and did some weights. AND!!  And what? And exercise is one of the very best ways to reduce stress. It’s a double win! Let’s start an exercise routine today! One of the very best decisions you will have made, at any stage in your life.

Write your goals down. We constantly dream and plan in our heads. We stand around the water cooler and talk about living in a warmer climate, having more money or working in a dream career. Get those thoughts out of your head and onto paper! Make them concrete. Take the next step towards making them into reality. What is your biggest dream? What is the very next action you need to take to make your dream a reality? What is stopping you? Write it down today and write down the next step you need to take. Now you are on your way!!

How I Let Go Of Stress Overnight

If we want to fully let go of the endless negative chatter in your head, try following the techniques prescribed in the book – The Myth Of Stress.

The technique used in this book is called Active insight.  Active insight is about changing your beliefs that drive emotions and behaviour. Changing these beliefs brings a peace and clarity to your mind enabling you to move onto bigger and better things.

Is 100% of our stress internal?  Do we create 100% of our stress?  Yes.

This isn’t a technique that allows you to temporarily escape stress, it addresses it at the root cause.

Here is an example of an exercise I have performed.

A stressful thought that continuously pops up for me is “I should weigh less”

To rid myself of this silly stressful belief and to accept myself I  insert the following

“In reality I should not weigh less at this time because …

“In reality I should not weigh less at this time because I am not exercising daily”.

“In reality I should not weigh less at this time because I eat more than my body needs”

“In reality I should not weigh less at this time because I’m over 30 years old and as we get older we put on weight”

“In reality I should not weigh less at this time because I drink alcohol which is empty calories”

Now I don’t go around with the vague stress belief that I should weigh less.  I’ve accepted the reality as to why I don’t weigh less. I’ve accepted my life and how I got here.

Now I’m ready to move on and change instead of letting this little thought stress me almost every day.

I have insight into my biggest cause of stress. That insight was my vague belief.

You Can Laugh At Money Worries If You Follow This Simple Plan

In order to have a much tighter control over our spending habits AND save money, here are the two major changes we made.

1. Created a monthly budget for each of the following – food, pets, home improvement and misc.

2. Put this monthly budget money in separate jars and use that cash for shopping.

We actually got the idea from the show Till Debt Do Us Part. (love that show)

I also just subscribed to the blog of Gail who hosts the show and I’m 100% sure I’ll love it.

It’s odd that we have never fully committed to budgeting money. Now I feel more in control and a huge stress relief.

What can you do today to get your finances under control?

Don’t Wait For Your Life To Change – Change it

Ric Elias: 3 things I learned while my plane crashed

Click to link

Why My Brain Loves My Visa Card

As you know I’m making a huge effort to save more money and lose weight. Here is what I’m learning about saving money.

Don’t buy stuff. Don’t even go to stores. Stores are wonderfully set up to affect the emotional part of your mind.

I’ve written a few times about the emotional mind fighting the rational mind. And my solution is to shape the world around you (avoid shopping). That way your emotional mind is completely taken out of the equation.

The problem is that the emotional mind wins more often than it should. Let’s look at how Costco stores are set up. Whenever I walk into a Costco store there are beautiful flat screen televisions when you first walk in.

My first thought is “It would be great to have a second plasma TV in the bedroom. And it would only be a small one, so only $899!”

As I round the second corner there is always a display case of beautiful watches and jewellery.  I love to look at the luxury watches at great prices. Good thing I’ve learnt not to buy watches.

But the flat screen TV thought I have, comes up every time I step into a Costco.

If I bought the TV It would be a purely emotional purchase.  My rational mind (don’t need a second TV and I don’t have the cash) would severely lose out.

The good thing is that I don’t make these Costco purchases. But…

But I did buy a beautiful Hugo Boss lamb skin jacket the other month. It was marked down from $1500 to $1000 to $262. Did I need this jacket? Noooo. Was it purely an emotional purchase? Of course it was. My prefrontal cortex lost all rational reasoning. AND I used my Visa card. AND I bought a couple of lovely polo shirts. Total bill for one jacket and two polo shirts was around $400.

Whenever we consider buying anything (even cereal) it is a tug of war in between the emotional and rational sides.  That cereal is very expensive but I love it AND it’s healthy.

So the lesson here is to be very aware of what triggers you to purchase something. And be especially conscious of your financial situation. And also be aware that using a Visa card is much, much less painful than having to go out and withdraw $400 cash AND hand it over for a jacket and two summer tops.

Using a Visa card is much more abstract to the brain then using cash.

This is how my brain works. I much more aware now.   What do I do with my Visa card?

They Laughed At Me When I Promised To Reduce Debt And Weight

Yea. I’ve lost 2 pounds magically. Go Me! Down to 208

Ok, let’s get serious.

As you know I’m on a journey to lose 20 pounds and reduce a few nagging debts. I’ll give you all my secrets in the next post.

Last night I was looking into buying gold bullion! So how will this reduce my debt? It won’t! But it sure was incredibly fun to think about owning little gold 1 ounce bricks and lovingly placing them in my very own safety deposit box.  Every time I would feel a little depressed I’d scamper over to the bank and pet my gold.

That would be awesome!

So where was I? Oh yes ..reduce debt.  The point of this post was to show you how easy it was to get derailed from my goal of reducing my debt. Buying gold will not reduce it.

Focus!

How are you doing on your life changes?  Making any?  Hmmmmm??

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