Month: October 2016

Life rushes by – I can’t believe that I can so easily flash back to memories and then realise that they are over 10 or 15 years old. They feel like yesterday! This often gives me a huge wake-up call to make sure that I am making THESE days memorable, so that in another 10 or 15 years, I can look back with satisfaction about what I am doing TODAY. I don’t want to look back and think – gee they were just a blurr of mild satisfaction. This doesn’t mean having to give up everything and only seek gleeful adventure (although that would be nice), but making time for those in your life that you really treasure and enjoy – making sure that your time is spent demonstrating the value you hold for those people (not half distracted by other thoughts, your phone, your computer, etc.). There is so much in this world to appreciate and experience, what is one thing that you can do today to amplify these positive memories for your future?

Having a plan for each day and a ‘to-do’ list that focuses on building productive habits and your priorities is invaluable in creating a sense of order and focus in your life. Sometimes, especially when family comes along, we often sideline our priorities or get lost in the whirlwind of taking care of everybody else. Often we end up kicking ourselves for forgetting to do important things that would be easily done had we made 5 minutes a day to sit back and think of the big picture, keep notes/bills/appointments organised and scheduled, reconfirmed meetings, etc. Honestly, it does sound like a lot of work, but I set no more than 5 minutes aside each morning to write down the things I need to get done this day/week, I have an automatic ‘everyday’ to-do list and send out confirmations for all my appointments in the next few days. It gives such a great boost in your sense of order, control and ‘I’m good at this’ vibe. Also, crossing things off your to-do list and being conscious of congratulating yourself each time you do that, thinking about how you are progressing helps you to train your mind in positivity and self-appreciation. Sometimes, unexpected events will come – but being more aware of what is happening day-to-day will help you to give others notice and reorganise those few things very quickly. As the days go on, your ‘big’ to-do list will get shorter and shorter, life gets more manageable and you start to recognise beautiful patterns of accomplishment in your life. Go get em!

How you start your day and the expectations that you have for it are pivotal to the small and large successes of your life. Do you have a ritual or routine that starts you off on a positive, powerful and healthy start? Do you wake up and think positive thoughts about your coming day or do you feel ‘blank’ and scroll through your phone for 10-15 minutes? Eating the right food to start your day and ensuring that the messages you are receiving to your mind are empowering, satisfying and optimistic can do a lot for your temporary mood and also for building mental habits and your own motivation for conquering your goals. Also, if you find yourself struggling to stick to an exercise regime, many have attested to how effective it is to do your workout first thing – before anything else – so that excuses do not pile up through the day and you find that ‘you don’t have time’. Make an observation for this week about how you wake up and what you do – then, imagine your healthiest and most ideal version of that and try it out for 7 days. Wake up that little bit earlier, ignore your phone until you get something positive happening in your day and track the difference that it makes to your thought patterns and sense of positivity.

When people think of taking time to relax, many think of sitting in front of the TV and ‘switching off’ or scrolling through kilometres of news feed in their phones. Studies, however, have found that this type of passive relaxation actually carries emotion levels of ‘mildly depressed’ in comparison to other forms of leisure, such as playing a sport or engaging the mind in a game that involves decision making and thinking (this could be challenging video games, monopoly, chess, etc.) where ‘flow’ or ‘engagement’ brings many more positive rewards and benefits to the emotion, physical relaxation and self-esteem. This comes as a big surprise, as our society seems enmeshed in the ability to ‘switch off’ and the necessity of this. However, perhaps meditation exercises where the mind is trained to deconstruct, relax and relieve pressure would be a more positive idea if seeking time out from the hassles of daily life. So, next time you are reaching for the remote with no idea what you want to watch…consider trying something more mentally purposeful and see if you can tell the difference in your mood afterwards!

One major problem with finding motivation is that many of us are really stuck when people ask “what do you want to do?”, “what is your ‘thing’?”, “what do you do for a hobby/fun?”. Some people can answer this with an amazing amount of passion and clarity, while others find it very hard to answer. If you have been working flat out in three jobs for so long, you are a parent or carer – sometimes it has been so long since you did any kind of hobby/had any free time to pursue something meaningful that the answer to this question seems elusive. And when you do get that very occasional ‘free time’, you find yourself at a lost end. The idea of ‘flow’ is where you are so consumed in your activity that you lose track of time due to a complete engagement in the moment. This is one of the supreme acts of satisfaction and gratification for a person. However, many of us live in a state where we rarely, if ever, experience this sensation. One way to build opportunities to begin to identify ‘what you want’ in life – is to set aside 10 minutes at either the beginning or end of your day for simple visualisation (you can either write it down or just sit and imagine) – what do you want your life to look like? This will not be easy straight away and can often take a lot of redirection of your thoughts, but after 14 days of 10 minutes, you will start noticing patterns of things that you wish you could do. Then the choice is yours – you must find time to incorporate a little bit of that wish into each day or week systematically and without compromise. If it is designing interiors – spend 30 minutes a week creating collages on the internet or from a nice magazine of ‘looks’ that appeal to you. Soon, this little hobby will occupy a more permanent space in your mind, will appear in conversation with others and opportunities will begin to present themselves. But this process MUST be started and worked on consistently. Your dream life will not just eventuate by accident. Enjoy finding your ‘flow’!

There has been a great amount of emphasis in social and formal education in the previous few decades that focus on ‘listening to yourself’ and expressing our emotions. This is fantastic, as it is such a crucial element of living. There is a catch, however, as we have been groomed and are grooming our younger generations to depend upon our emotions to dictate our days, decisions and actions. This is problematic in a couple of ways, and also beneficial. If you feel morally uncomfortable with a situation, or something makes you feel incredibly gratified – it is reasonable to follow these feelings. However, we often hear of people ‘waiting for motivation’ or an excuse, “I’m just not feeling it”. Life cannot wait for our emotional moods to swing into alignment at the perfect moment. As any teenager (and child and adult) can attest, emotions are highly variable, unpredictable and often baseless in real fact. So, whilst it is important to engage in your emotional life, it is also equally important to be able to override and analyse your own emotions with logic and decision so that you can participate and master your goals and important elements of your life. Many things in life that are beyond the simple, momentary and fleeting ‘pleasures’ that are usually physical and temporary. When we start getting into the category of ‘gratification’, rather than ‘pleasure’, we encounter a place where hard work, endurance and total engagement come into play to bring a more supreme sense of satisfaction despite (and perhaps, because of, the adversity and hard work that has led to it). To explain this in another way – you often appreciate something that you buy after saving up for it for a considerable amount of time, rather than instantaneously receiving it soon after you desire it. In summary, perhaps it is time to start overriding some emotions today that aren’t serving you in a way that improves your life. Feeling lazy and wanting to stay in bed? Override – get up and do what you told yourself that you would do when you woke up. Exercise, make a healthy breakfast, meditate and write in your journal. Your gratification and pride in yourself will easily override the momentary pleasure of sleeping in, I promise.

Our habits are often what make us or break us. Tiny things that you do or avoid each day form the basis of your lifestyle and health. This relates to all areas of life – sleep, eating, exercise, ways of thinking, ways of relating to and about others, work habits – you name it! The good news is, however, once you sit down and evaluate your habits honestly (you may even ask for feedback from a friend, spouse, or other adult in your sphere), you are harnessing a very powerful element in your life. Initially, changing habits is hard – most experts say 14-21 days is the crucial period in which it must be sustained in order to be maintained long term and for it to slide into your new definition of ‘normal’. It is important, therefore, to make sure that you have adequate support and accountability during this time of shift to make it more likely that you will continue your new habit for that time. Don’t avoid normal life – the habit must be strong enough to withstand unpredictable and ‘less-than-ideal’ situations, however your mental preparation and accountability must be especially strong in the build-up and during those days/times. Once you have reached the point where you have crossed the ‘new’ threshold of the habit, it is still important to maintain accountability for around 3-4 months. However, this does not have to be so intense and can take the form of a weekly debrief with your accountability partner through email/conversation or even in your own personal diary. This practise is essential in order to develop as a person and also one of the most powerful ways to discipline and train the brain to become more adaptable, optimistic and successful. Who wouldn’t want that?

Life, in all its beauty, is quite unpredictable at times. You can have all the schedules and lists that you want but it is highly likely that every now and then a doozy will come your way. How we deal with the unexpected, with adversity and with good things in life mentally tells us a lot about ourselves and also can have great influences upon our likelihood for success. Pervasiveness is a characteristic of your mental habits which describes how much you generalise specific experiences into reflections of yourself, others and the world. For example, a negative pervasive attitude may resemble the following scenario: A person gets fired – he/she begins to think that they simply don’t have what it takes in the job market anymore, that they have always been lousy and no good at anything. This extreme attitude then goes on to spread into the other areas of life: they stop exercising and socialising. They ignore important people in life and create a general ‘funk’ that they stay in. If a person has little pervasive negativity, the through process may resemble something like this: “I really wasn’t suited for that job, but I will find another one that fits my skillset and character best. This is just one problem that I can resolve, it doesn’t have to affect my life. I have found good jobs before – I really enjoyed the previous one before I took this promotion”. This person continues the other aspects of his/her life as normal, continuing to draw on social support and habit to ensure that he/she doesn’t go ‘off the tracks’ completely. What pattern do you notice in your life when adversity happens?

On the other hand, pervasiveness in good or fortunate events is MORE healthy than making specific exceptions. For example, if you get an unexpected raise, it is more beneficial to your mental, physical  and social wellbeing to attribute it to a pervasive attitude in your character. So, instead of thinking, “I was just lucky, they have to pay out a certain figure each year”, it is much more helpful to think something like, “I am a great person and I deserve this pay rise as I deserve many good things. It’s great to be recognised like this and I’m sure it will continue”.

So, whilst we may need to consciously adopt two opposing mindsets about pervasiveness in our thinking – one for positive situations and one for negative – this will help us to objectively look at our situations and our reactions to them and choose our response, which is often much more productive than simply following what our emotions dictate.

Many of us start our new journeys, resolutions and plans with gusto and effort. It’s not the beginning and the motivation that is the issue, but the daily grind of getting things completed. It is as if we believe that each day we should feel that magnificent drive that we experienced when we made the decision – but that is not the makings of a resolute and focused person. Practicing determination and hard work means going through the barriers, pushing through tiredness and…FINISHING. The more tasks you finish in a day (no matter how small) and you really think about finishing them, the more accustomed to finishing you become. Finishing things when you “can’t be bothered” – this is the training that you need. When these actions are aligned with your goals and will lead you somewhere greater tomorrow – this is when you need to switch off your emotional compass and Get. It. Done. The reward afterwards will by far beat the ‘satisfaction’ of stopping before. You will simply think about how you “can’t finish it” and sit there with a mixture of guilt and laziness – not a great emotion to finish the day/session on. But remember, always acknowledge your progress and your ‘finishes’ and focus on them to remind your brain that deep within your personality, a part of who you are – is a finisher.

What’s the point of feeling ‘happy’? Isn’t it enough to simply get through life? The psychological field has, over the last 15 years or so, begun to develop more of a positivity focus, rather than a ‘diagnose the problem’. The influence of positive emotion and, more lastingly, an optimistic perspective on life in general has been found to be linked not only to longer lifespans, but physically healthier lives, more positive relationships with friends, family and lovers, increased creativity and resilience in difficult situations and an overall higher satisfaction and motivation. This all sounds great, right?! But how do you “grow” positive emotion – especially if you feel like life has been giving you serious lemons?

Engaging in mindfulness and meditation geared at positive thinking, studying some Cognitive Behaviour Therapies and also exploring the Positive Psychology field all provide practical and simple exercises that can be done in under ten minutes a day and, as we can testify, has profound impacts over 14 days on your mental state and sense of wellbeing in general.

Personally, we can report an increased sense of gratitude, vitality, certainty and purpose, as well as a stronger sense of connection, value and presence when around those that we care about (and even those that we don’t!). So, maybe happiness isn’t something that simply comes as a result of achieving goals, but a mental state that can be fostered to improve our lives now, and also fuel us to get to our goals and enjoy the journey along the way!