Category: positivity

Tuesday’s Top Tip

AP2

Why should you make your bed in the morning? Why should you shave? Why should you wear your best clothes? Why should you exercise? Why should you find 5 minutes to meditate?

Because all little these things are saying something. They are saying whether or not you think today is more or less important than others.

I always advocate wearing your best clothes (practically speaking of course). I always advocate going through your morning routine – especially if you don’t feel like it.

By doing so you are telling yourself to show up for today.

You are telling yourself that today is what matters the most.

That this moment is the most precious one.

This is always true.

Why wouldn’t you show up for what is always the most important day of your life? 

Previous Top Tip

Tuesday’s Top Tip

AP2

There are no good people.

There are no bad people.

There are only those who are trying to be better and those who are not.

Trying to be a “good person” or aiming for some idea of perfection is exactly what society wants you to do. This makes you feel like you’re always less than, like you’re not a good person, that you’re not capable…

For lack of putting it a better way, this is complete horse sh*t.

Forget good.

Forget perfect.

You are neither of those things. Well, maybe you’re occasionally capable of being good as defined by society, but never perfect. That is a fantasy.

No no no.

Banish good and perfect from your vocabulary and concentrate on one word alone.

That is better.

Make it your only aim in life. Your only aim everyday in whatever it is you decided to do. Simply try to be a better person.

This, you always can be.

This is enough.

Previous Top Tip

Motivational Mondays – 14/09/20

Motivational Mondays – 14/09/20

AP2

Hello fine readers and welcome back to my Motivational Mondays Post!

The only weekly newsletter to teach you about contraception before you have sex and then offer you a cigarette afterwards…

Following a 4:3:2:1 approach, it contains 4 exceptional thoughts from me (ha), 3 admittedly better quotes from others, and 2 things I’ve been reading and/or listening to this week that have helped me grow.

As always I’ve finished with 1 silly story to lighten your Monday blues… 

Much Love,

AP2 X

4 x Thoughts From Me:

Never forget that someone built the road you drive on. 

If you only ever wait until it’s stopped raining, you’ll always be starting from the back. Always start now. Don’t wait until you feel like it, do it especially if you don’t. Make a point of going for a run in the freezing rain. Champions of their minds override their negative feelings and thought patterns. They don’t live in absence of them. One of my core vulnerabilities is a belief that I’m not capable. It’s something I’ve learnt to understand and live with. As a result I’ve become very good at getting on with life despite a desire to crawl under the covers. It took a long time but I’ve gained a huge amount of confidence from it. What was once a weakness has become a strength. The real beauty has come from realising that only through action can you put your demons to bed. The time to start is always now!

Remember that even a harsh truth can be followed with words of encouragement. Kindness can always be used to soften the blow. If you’re confronting someone about something you feel they need to hear, it’s important to deliver your truth in such a manner that it will be received. If your delivery is too harsh, regardless as to whether you’re right or not, it becomes extremely difficult for the other person to receive. When it comes to being honest, kindness is king.

Something I didn’t believe a year ago: If you hurt someone else you hurt yourself. If you look deeply you’ll see how every action ripples out to the world and back at you. One man eats one bat in one wet market in one tiny corner of the globe and the whole world reels. The butterfly effect is very real. The more attention and care we can pay to each and every precious moment the better it is for all of us. 

3 x Quotes From Others:

“Optimism and pessimism can coexist. If you look hard enough you’ll see them next to each other in virtually every successful company and successful career. They seem like opposites, but they work together to keep everything in balance.” – Morgan Housel (Source: James Clear newsletter)

“Always, Always, Always Believe In Yourself, Because If You Don’t, Then Who Will, Sweetie? So Keep Your Head High, Keep Your Chin Up, And Most Importantly, Keep Smiling, Because Life’s A Beautiful Thing And There’s So Much To Smile About.” – Marilyn Monroe (Source: turtlequote.com)

“We are certainly capable of writing something poorly. No one has writing something poorly block.” – Seth Godin (Source: wanderingambivert.com)

2 x Things That Helped Me Grow

1 – This Old Tim Ferris Podcast interview with Maria Popova on Writing, Workflow, and Workarounds. For those who aren’t familiar, Maria Popova is the author and creator of brainpickings.org. I’ve been a subscriber of her weekly email for a while now and absolutely love her work. You could spend hours upon hours getting lost in the treasure trove that is her blog. While this episode is a little old now her advice about blogging is timeless (I guess until people stop blogging of course). I found her advice about leaving comments on other blogs to be particularly insightful. This is very much an interview about blogging. Notes and quotes below.

MY PERSONAL NOTES AND QUOTES:

  • Inhabiting your own identity is a perpetual project. 
  • What do you do? I do some reading and some writing with some thinking in between. I’m always thinking, how can I live a valuable life? My blog is a record of my thinking. 
  • “You should focus on just in time information, not just in case information”
  • I try to put out – “Timely and timeless material.”
  • “A true artist takes no notice whatever of the public” –  Oscar Wilde
  • A human struggle to be seen and understood for who you are – this is how all art comes to be. 
  • I don’t need to know how my work feels for other people. I care more about it reaching people in some way. How they react is less of a concern. But I do want it to reach them and talk to them in some way. 
  • People fail to understand that they should write and create the things they want to consume – not what they think someone else does.
  • Something I’ve been struggling with. The delicate balance between presence and productivity. 
  • Routine and rituals are a control mechanism that help to try and restore a bit of order to the messiness of life but that’s not all there is. 
  • I’m a huge proponent of sleep. To make the connections necessary for my creative process I need my brain to be alert. When I’m sleep deprived it doesn’t function nearly as well. A lack of sleep is total failure of priorities and self respect. 
  • Note taking – make an idea index. (Beautiful language or quote index) Write ideas/major themes then write page numbers where they occur. On the page highlight the particular passage you are thinking about. 
  • How much are we mistaking the doing for the being?
  • Philosophy used intelligently in an attempt to reclaim it – to understand it is the only way to figure out how to live.
  • The great Roman philosophers are just as relevant now as they were then. Their advice is timeless. 
  • The duo that causes all inspiration: desperation and frustration. 
  • It’s interesting that on that intellectual level we understand that delegating tasks is a sign of strength- to divy up based on your priorities but on physiological level it feels like death to give up control of the small things that are weighing you down/holding you back. 
  • Comments. The problem with snap judgments – writing a comment based on a fraction of the article or just the headline. This is something social media perpetuates. I can’t deal with it so I don’t.
  • “If you don’t have the patience to read something, don’t have the hubris to comment on it.” 
  • People have a hard time with criticism- why? I think people have less difficultly when someone has disagreed with or dislikes what they have to say. People have a harder time when they feel they’ve been misunderstood. 
  • The main kind of anguish is when you’re not being seen for who you are. When you’re being misunderstood. This culture of commenting without taking the care to understand the person you are talking to. To understand what they are about is a big problem. 
  • You have to be merciless about deleting comments where there’s clearly no patience or thinking shown. 
  • My blog is my home. If you’re gonna come and be an idiot you’re not welcome. I think of it as my living room. If you’re gonna show up drunk you’re not welcome. Period. 
  • I don’t want to promote a culture that is apathetical to why it is I do what I do. 
  • A culture of news is a culture without nuance. My blog/writing is about understanding the nuance. 
  • Guilt is the flipside of prestige. Both are terrible reasons for doing something. 

2 – This brilliant Mark Manson article, Why We All Need Philosophy. For those who doubt the importance philosophy plays in one’s life please take the time to give this a read. It’s a long read but well worth it! I’ll leave you with one quote from the article below.

“Philosophy teaches us the fundamental techniques for finding meaning and purpose in a world where there is no given meaning, no cosmic purpose. Philosophy gives us tools to determine what is likely to be important and true and what is likely frivolous and made-up. Philosophy shows us principles to help direct our actions, to determine our worth and values, to generate a magnetic field to direct our internal compass, so that we may never feel lost again.”

1 x Silly Thing To Make You Smile:

I’ll start this post by wishing my very silly boy a very happy birthday. He turned exactly 2 years old today!

As if to mark the occasion my son began expressing himself in a number of surprising ways this week.

First up he decided to start calling my wife, quote, “big fat mama.” Which would be hilarious if my wife wasn’t exactly 23 weeks pregnant…

Oh wait.

At any rate neither of us know where on earth he picked this unfortunate turn of phrase.

If only that were the worst of it!

During another more shocking episode last night at the dinner table he started shouting, “Ass! Ass!” – two times before laughing to himself.

My wife commented, “where on earth did he learn that from?”

I looked at my wife very seriously while replying, “I honestly don’t know, but I’m sure we can get to the bottom of it.”

Thanks ladies and gentlemen. I’m here all week!

Till next time…

Have a Happy Monday Everybody!

P.S. Don’t forget to exercise your silly muscle this week!

One bonus question for you all:

What does philosophy mean for you?

(Thank you all so much for reading. If you have any suggestions, thoughts or ideas about today’s weekly post I’d love to hear from you in the comments at the bottom.)

PREVIOUS MONDAY POST:

Motivational Mondays – 07/09/20

Motivational Mondays – 31/08/20

Motivational Mondays – 31/08/20

AP2

Hello fine readers and welcome back to my Motivational Mondays Post – The only weekly newsletter to give your medicine with a spoon full of sugar!

Following a 4:3:2:1 approach, it contains 4 exceptional thoughts from me (ha), 3 admittedly better quotes from others, and 2 things I’ve been reading and/or listening to this week that have helped me grow!

As always I’ve finished with 1 silly story to lighten your Monday blues… 

Love to all X

4 x Thoughts From Me:

If you can improve your life knowing you already have enough, then future failures will hurt you less and future successes will bring you more joy. 

The early bird often catches the worm because he or she is an early bird. If you’re a night owl, forcing yourself to catch worms in the morning isn’t the best strategy. Far better to build your day according to a schedule that suits your chronotype. Why hunt for worms if it’s easier for you to catch mice?

For all wannabe bloggers: understand we all have to start from scratch and that it takes time and effort for things to take off. Most important are your reasons for blogging. Let it be about the love of writing. Let it be about helping others, however small the number. If your words reach just one person then you’ve already achieved something special. Forget the numbers and speak from your heart. Forget the numbers and concentrate on making connections instead. Forget the numbers and enjoy the journey.

An intolerance of right wing politics from the left only strengthens intolerance in the right and vice versa. Not having tolerance for those who you disagree only strengthens their position, as well as your own. It only deepens the divide. What we need is greater understanding. We cannot change what we don’t understand.

3 x Quotes From Others:

“To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears. To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool. To be led by a thief is to offer up your most precious treasures to be stolen. To be led by a liar is to ask to be told lies. To be led by a tyrant is to sell yourself and those you love into slavery.” – Octavia Butler

“After a point of time, when you get success and fame, money and everything, the purpose of life has to be redefined. For me, I think that purpose is to build bridges. Artists can do that very easily, more than politicians.” – A. R. Rahman

“Democracy is only as good as the education that surrounds it.”- Socrates

2 x Things That Helped Me Grow

1 – This interesting No Stupid Questions podcast episode with Steven Dubner and Angela Duckworth: How Much of Your Life Do You Actually Control? In this episode Steven and Angela discuss the advantages of having an internal locus of control versus an external locus. They also discuss the reasons why we procrastinate and how to stop it. Note and quotes below.

MY PERSONAL NOTES AND QUOTES:

  • Those who have an internal locus of control tend to think they effect outcomes more than they actually do. They believe life is controlled by them. Those with an external locus tend to think they have less control than they actually do. They believe life happens to them. 
  • People with an internal locus tend to be more successful. They have better mental health. People with external locus are more prone to depression- tend to be more lackadaisical at work. 
  • The most productive thing one can do in a difficult situation is to concentrate on controlling the controllables.
  • Good to have two columns in your mind. What you can control and what you can’t. Make the active choice to concentrate your finite attention and energy on what you can control. Give up wasting it on blaming external circumstances outside of your control. 
  • Children taught to have a growth mindset and to have grit perform better. It’s important to teach this mindset keeping in mind that other children – through no fault of their own – are disadvantaged. We can’t continue to create a culture of superiority where adults believe it’s only because they worked harder that they have been more successful. 
  • “Why put off what you can do tomorrow till the day after tomorrow?” – Mark Twain 
  • Why do we procrastinate? We procrastinate because of fear. Not because of laziness. 
  • We often think of a task as being far more difficult and taxing than it really is. As a result we expend more emotional energy procrastinating than we would if we simply got on with the task.
  • I love deadlines. I need deadlines. Without the deadline I’d be about 90% less productive than I am. 
  • Procrastinating is a form of impulsivity. It’s a failure to delay gratification – like the marshmallow test. The question is whether you are going to do what’s best for your future self or please your present self? 
  • A procrastinator correlates with lower achievement and lower self esteem 
  • Upside to procrastination?- more creative. Procrastinating can be used as a useful creative tool. To connect the dots. 
  • But deliberately delaying a task or a problem to think of a solution – is that procrastination? Procrastination is used as a negative term to describe an action we wish we had done earlier. 
  • Tip 1. Break big tasks into small tasks. The dread is often because you are anticipating the enormity of a task like writing a book. When focusing on small manageable chunks progress becomes easier. 
  • Tip 2. Just start. Self deception. I’m just going to take a look. I’m just going to do 5 mins. Simply start and you’ll often find you end up doing more than you expected.

2 – This excellent TED talk – Why Schools Should Teach Children For The Real World – by Ted Dintersmith.

“As automation eliminates structured jobs and careers, schools should focus on training students to be bold, creative and entrepreneurial. Instead, argues education advocate Ted Dintersmith, the core purpose of education has been lost in a wave of testing, data and increasingly irrelevant metrics. In this talk, he underscores the need to educate for innovative and creative strengths, and trust our schools and teachers to prepare our kids for life, instead of standardized tests.”

1 x Silly Thing To Make You Smile:

This one will be short and sweet, just like my gorgeous silly boy who decided to start naming his nose after things!

Yes you read that correctly.

As my wife explained, he’s started pointing at his nose and saying things like, “This is car!”

I laughed before replying, “That’s good to nose…”

I’m here all week ladies and gentlemen!

Till next time…

Have a Happy Monday Everybody!

P.S. Don’t forget to exercise your silly muscle this week!

One bonus question for you all:

What can you write about that nobody else can?

(Thank you all so much for reading. If you have any suggestions, thoughts or ideas about today’s weekly post I’d love to hear from you in the comments at the bottom.)

PREVIOUS MONDAY POSTS:

Motivational Mondays – 24/08/20

Motivational Mondays – 17/08/20

Motivational Mondays – 10/08/20

Motivational Mondays – 03/08/20

Motivational Mondays – 27/07/20

Motivational Mondays – 20/07/20

Motivational Mondays – 13/07/20

Motivational Mondays – 06/07/20

Motivational Mondays – 24/08/20

Motivational Mondays – 24/08/20

AP2

Hello fine readers and welcome back to my Motivational Mondays Post – The only newsletter to start your week with a snap, crackle and pop!

Following a 4:3:2:1 approach, it contains 4 exceptional thoughts from me (ha), 3 admittedly better quotes from others, and 2 things I’ve been reading and/or listening to this week that have helped me grow (in a non sexual manner)!

As always I’ve finished with 1 silly story to lighten your Monday blues… 

Love to all X

4 x Thoughts From Me:

Don’t pay much attention to your past. The lessons you’ve learnt will be applied at the appropriate moments provided you remain present. If you spend your time looking backward you’re in danger of missing those moments. Then you’ll find history repeating itself. Stay present with one eye on the future. Leave the past where it is.

If you complain you suffer twice. If you blame you deny yourself the opportunity to learn. If you give up both of those habits you’ll go far. 

I do believe if you can find the thing you love – if it happens to pay the bills as well – then you’ve landed a winning lottery ticket. This is the advice that everyone pedals as a possible reality but the truth is many of our passions simply don’t pay the bills. Writing for me is about the why – not about trying to get clickbait or make money. If I tried turning it into a profession I think I’d give it up fairly quickly. I don’t believe there is anything wrong with a half decent job while spending your spare time doing the things that you love instead. This is a more realistic and achievable goal. So long as you make the time to pursue your passion, it doesn’t have to be the thing that pays the bills!

It’s difficult to love other people if you don’t love yourself. It’s difficult to love yourself if you don’t love other people. It works both ways. Ask yourself which you have most trouble with and work on it.

3 x Quotes From Others:

“Good luck is when opportunity meets preparation. While bad luck is when lack of preparation meets reality.”– Eliyahu Goldratt

“Grief, I’ve learned, is really just love. It’s all the love you want to give, but cannot… Grief is just love with no place to go.” – Jamie Anderson

“Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavour.”- Truman Capote

2 x Things That Helped Me Grow

1 – This fascinating Intelligence Squared podcast episode about The Hidden Power of Caste, with Isabel Wilkerson and Yassmin Abdel-Magied. “Race, class, gender. These are the categories that are commonly thought to define our lives. But Pulitzer Prize-winning author Isabel Wilkerson argues that ultimately the determining factor in societies is a more powerful, unspoken system of divisions: caste.”

MY PERSONAL NOTES AND QUOTES:

  • What is caste?An arbitrary graded ranking of human value in a society – where a person’s characteristics determines standing, respect, access to resources, assumptions of beauty and intelligence, whether benefit of the doubt is given etc. – In the United States the metric born out of the slave trade for our caste system is/has been race. We live under the shadow of this metric to this day. 
  • Teacher in Iowa experimented with children in her class by assigning caste system based on the colour of their eyes. Anyone with brown eyes was deemed inferior and not allowed the same privileges. They were not allowed to interact with others. Brown eyed children were bullied immediately. They would say oh that’s because he/she is “a brown eyed” if they made a mistake or performed poorly. They actually ended up scoring lower in tests because they believed they were inferior. Something that was undeniably a neutral trait was instantaneously taken to mean something else by these children, simply because that’s what they were told!
  • Hitler spoke of his admiration for ‘America’s knack for maintaining an air of robust innocence in the wake of mass deaths.’ The Nazis admired the Americans for their caste system – they sent researchers to the United States to understand how they were able to subjugate and subordinate African Americans. Helped to form the Nuremberg laws. 
  • The tragedy of caste systems: We make assumptions based on what we can see. Yet you might know nothing about a person but because of the caste system under which you’ve been raised, your assumptions are automatic.
  • (In response to receiving racial prejudice) “I don’t take offence. I believe this is simply a problem of the coding we have received as humans from an arbitrary caste system based on race.” 
  • The beauty of focusing on the system and structures is you can remove the emotions that get in the way of seeing things clearly. You can understand it’s not necessarily the persons fault for the assumptions she or he has made. 
  • The coding is so deeply imbedded that it operates despite all evidence to the contrary. 
  • One of the things modern Germany has done so well in is educating its own population. They have turned all the places of previous horror into memorials and centres of education. 
  • “Whatever is there won’t go away just because you won’t look at it. Actually it’ll only get worse.”
  • If you don’t know you can’t act. Nothing can be expected of you if you do not know. The question is what do you do when you do become aware? You have to be able to see a problem to solve a problem.

2 – This excellent BBC article The ‘Batman Effect’: How having an alter ego empowers you by David Robson (author of The Intelligence Trap: Why Smart People Do Dumb Things). We’ve all heard the mantra ‘fake it till you make it’ – well this article explores how adopting an alter ego – such as batman – can help you overcome your anxieties and achieve your goals. Well worth the read! 3 quotes from the article below.

“Although the embodiment of a fictional persona may seem like a gimmick for pop stars, new research suggests there may be some real psychological benefits to the strategy. Adopting an alter ego is an extreme form of ‘self-distancing’, which involves taking a step back from our immediate feelings to allow us to view a situation more dispassionately.”

“In one study, participants were asked to think about a challenging event in the future, such as an important exam, in one of two different ways. The group in the “immersed” condition were told to picture it from the inside, as if they were in the middle of the situation, whereas those in the “distanced” condition were asked to picture it from afar – as if they were a fly on the wall. The differences were striking, with those taking the distanced viewpoint feeling much less anxious about the event, compared to the immersed group. The self-distancing also encouraged greater feelings of self-efficacy – the sense that they could pro-actively cope with the situation and achieve their goal.”

“The researchers had suspected that the alter ego would be a more extreme form of self-distancing, and the results showed exactly that. While the children thinking in the third person spent about 10% more of the total available time on the task that those thinking in the first person, it was the children inhabiting their alter egos who stuck it out for the longest of all. Overall, they spent 13% more of the total available time on the task than those thinking in the third person (and 23% more than those thinking about their behaviour in the first person).”

1 x Silly Thing To Make You Smile:

My son came up to me today while I was meditating exclaiming, “Mama’s brushing her tit.”

I shot up!

“Excuse me?,” I said, thinking I must have misheard him.

“Mama’s brushing her tit,” he repeated.

Oh my, I thought. He shouldn’t be looking at that.

“Where is she?,” I asked.

“Mama in bathroom,” he replied.

I poked my head through the open door. Sure enough there was mummy, brushing her teeth!

I was both disappointed and relieved at the same time.

Till next week…

Have a Happy Monday Everybody!

P.S. Don’t forget to exercise your silly muscle this week!

One bonus question for you all:

What have you been brushing this week? 

(Thank you all so much for reading. If you have any suggestions, thoughts or ideas about today’s weekly post I’d love to hear from you in the comments at the bottom.)

PREVIOUS MONDAY POSTS:

Motivational Mondays – 17/08/20

Motivational Mondays – 10/08/20

Motivational Mondays – 03/08/20

Motivational Mondays – 27/07/20

Motivational Mondays – 20/07/20

Motivational Mondays – 13/07/20

Motivational Mondays – 06/07/20

5 Counter-Intuitive Ways To Find Your True Calling

5 Counter-Intuitive Ways To Find Your True Calling

AP2

“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honours the servant and has forgotten the gift.”

– ALBERT EINSTEIN 

Following on from my post, The Only Thing The World Needs From You, I realised the advice I gave, although brilliant (ha), could be summarised by saying one should chase their dreams while simultaneously telling society to go fuck itself…

I stand by my words of course, but I realised it probably doesn’t help those who have absolutely no idea what they actually what to do.

For that reason, I decided to put this more practical post together in order to help any lost souls find their true calling in life (whatever the fuck that means).

Anyway, buckle up boys and girls, because I’m about to blow your minds wide open…

Let’s begin.

1. Don’t Do What You Don’t Love 

So many talk about chasing their dreams or following their heart or some other trite bullshit, as if everyone’s already figured out what that is. Yet for so many of us we have no idea what we really want. Often not knowing makes us feel like we’ve got something badly wrong. The truth is it’s completely understandable given the sheer amount of noise out there.

The question remains though, how are we suppose to understand what we want? How can we listen through the noise long enough to make sense of our place in all of it? If you really have no idea what you want then I suggest starting with the opposite.

If you don’t know what you want to do, become clear about what you don’t want to and stop doing it.

Use the process of elimination to take you closer.

The same way if you want to get fit and healthy, but hate running, don’t spend an hour on the fucking treadmill everyday – do something else instead! Dance or box or climb some rocks if that floats your boat. Do what ever it is you think you might like.

Ultimately you don’t have to like those things either, but I guarantee if you keep searching, if you keep cutting out the shit you don’t want to, you’ll eventually find the thing that you do.

There are always ways to make things you don’t want to do, like exercise, into things you actually do like dancing or boxing or surfing. Your job is no different. 

Don’t settle for the treadmill. Don’t settle for the dead end job you hate. Find the shit that gets you excited by saying no to the shit that doesn’t.

2. Stop Thinking About The Future

Sit down and meditate for hours if need be. Seek out professional help if you have to.

Whatever it is you need to do to stop the monkey mind from regurgitating the sheer amount of bullshit that society has fed it and find clarity.

I belief if you can do that, then what you need to do in the moment will become obvious. You won’t need to think about what you want in life. You’ll just know.

For me, at this moment in time, my calling is to write something that might be considered vaguely inspirational by some of you lovely readers. In about half an hour my calling will probably be to go make the world’s best sandwich. One day it was flying aeroplanes and travelling the world. The next day it was overcoming depression and anxiety. After that it has been trying to help others as I have, by channeling a mind that doesn’t know how to shut-the-fuck-up with a love of writing. On another day it was falling in love. After that it was starting a family.

I could go on. 

These are all things that have called to me. That made me feel alive. But those were only ever things I knew were right for me in the moment. If you can remain present I believe your calling will become clear.

3. Don’t Think You Only Have One Calling In Life 

Don’t think there has to be just one calling. In the moment there is only ever one calling but not throughout life.

Don’t think you need to peg your life to one career path.

It’s society that told you you had to have one long distinguished career. Who told you to had to get married to ‘the one.’ But there is no such thing as ‘the one’ or ‘the perfect job.’ There are millions of different types of people – as there are jobs – with some more compatible than others depending on the individual and where they are in life.

The relationships that work best are the ones where both understand the need to work at it. Not the ones who think because they’ve married “the one” everything will work out “happily ever after.” 

Society definitely fucked up our thinking up there.

Of course it certainly makes things simpler if you can have just one person and one career. And maybe for you that’s the case. Great – I’m not saying it can’t be – I just think it’s helpful to think in terms of not having to have one career path or life partner.

After all the pandemic could leave you unemployed and then, after being forced to spend too much time with your partner who realises doesn’t love you anymore, divorced…

Shit happens. When it does you have to embrace that shit with the fullness of your heart, or some other trite bullshit line. You get the point.

4. Imagine The Worst Case Scenario Then Do It Anyway. 

This brings me to my next bit of advice I stole from someone much smarter than me.

Imagine the worst case scenario of whatever you’re considering. Accept it as though it’s already happened and then go ahead and do it anyway.

Are you fucking crazy?! Probably but hear me out.

By worst case scenario I mean in a realistic sense – not if I go surfing a shark might attack me as a tsunami strikes while I get simultaneously hit by lightening from a freak storm that forms over head. No. I mean more like you could drown…

I joke of course.

What I mean is that maybe the water will be freezing cold and I end up shallowing sea water while everyone laughs at me because I can’t stand up on the board – ie you have a shitty time.

Did anyone die? Will anyone die if you leave that shitty job you hate?

The point of doing this is to understand that what we’re afraid of isn’t really that scary. Further that what we’re most afraid of isn’t very likely.

The chances are you might have loads of fun if you go surfing.

A great exercise to do if you’re considering a major life change is something called Fear Setting. Here’s what you do, 

1. Write out the major life change you’re considering. For example you might write, What if I… quit (or lost) my dead end office job? 

2. Next define the worst case scenario in detail. Ask yourself if it would be the end of your life (probably not)? Ask yourself how permanent it would be? It’s not like you won’t able to find another shitty job you hate right?

3. Next ask yourself what the benefits of a more probable scenario are? What are the definite positive outcomes (including for your self-esteem, mental and physical health etc) 

4. Next ask yourself what the cost will be if you do nothing? What will it cost you financially, emotionally & physically if you postpone that difficult choice? This is such a great question because if you zoom out ten years and you know you’ll still be miserable then you’ll see that the cost of inaction is often far greater.

5. Finally ask yourself what you’re so afraid of? It’s the fear of the unknown that prevents us from doing what we need to so to quote the big man Tim Ferris, “we end up choosing unhappiness over uncertainty.”

5. Trust Your Intuition 

I honestly don’t know what my calling will be tomorrow and I don’t want to know either. Life’s more beautiful when you allow yourself the freedom to change paths. When you’re not worrying about what career path to take tomorrow or what you said yesterday. When you’re fully invested in making the world’s best fucking sandwich. 

I find it’s a much more exciting to live this way. Give me excitement over security any day of the week. We all die at the end of it guys and gals. You gotta do the things that make you feel alive. Got to! 

The truth is I might well lose my job as a pilot because of this pandemic. Honestly I won’t chase it as a career if it comes to an end. I’m simply going to let it go. Not because there aren’t any other pilot jobs out there (there aren’t), but because I’ve found other passions. Other things I want to pursue. Other ladders I want to climb. I’ve had a great run but I’ve known for some time that a big change is due for me. 

I’m not going to do anything rash but when the time comes I’m trusting my gut.  I’m following my heart – whatever it is you want to call it – I know you know exactly what I’m talking about. That instinctual part that goes beyond the rational mind. The one that tells you to say ‘fuck it’ and go after what you want regardless of what anyone else thinks. Regardless of what your own rational mind has to say even. Because you know that it’s right in your heart.

Because you know it’s what will make you come alive. 

I’m done chasing someone else’s idea of success. It’s too hard. I like my own version better. I’ve found that the older I get, the more able and willing I am to simply say fuck that, to anything and everything I don’t want to do. I don’t shirk my responsibilities of course – I learnt the hard way that taking full responsibility for my life is something I definitely want – but I understand more clearly than I ever have about what it is I want. It’s been, and continues to be, an in-the-moment process.

For that reason I want to finish by saying please don’t be disheartened if you don’t know what you what to do with your life. Stay present and keep mixing it up. Don’t settle and remember that the worst case scenario is rarely as bad in reality – more often than not it works out for the best. Above all else trust your intuition. It exists for a reason.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m being called to make the world’s best sandwich…

Love to all X

As always ladies and gentleman I welcome ALL comments and opinions on this blog. I’m curious as to what you think about my advice and whether you have any additional gems you’d like to add? Thanks for reading!

Mindset Mondays – 13/07/20

Mindset Mondays – 13/07/20

AP2

Hello fine readers and welcome to my Motivational Mondays Post – a weekly newsletter that attempts to rewrite the narrative Mondays are the most depressing day of the week. (Or at least start it off in a slightly better fashion.)

Following a 4:3:2:1 approach, it contains 4 exceptional thoughts from me, 3 admittedly better quotes from others, and 2 things I’ve been reading and/or listening to this week that have helped me grow. 

As always I’ve finished with 1 something silly to hopefully make you all smile. 

Love to all X

(To my 2 regular readers: you’ll notice I’ve been playing around with the title. Do you like Motivational Mondays? If not, do you have any other ideas about a good title for this weekly post? If so please do leave them in the comments at the bottom. I’d be grateful for your suggestions.)

4 x Thoughts From Me:

One question to check if you have grown as a person: “Do I still believe the same things I did a year ago?” If the answer is yes then you haven’t grown. Growth comes from challenging your own beliefs so you may come to a greater understanding. You can always come to a greater understanding. 

We would all do well to think of seeing a therapist in the same way we do a doctor. We rarely think twice about visiting the doctor when we have physical pain we don’t understand. Why do we hesitate asking for professional help when we can’t understand the reasons behind our emotional pain?

The beauty of a moment comes from its impermanence. The moment you cling to it, it’s destroyed. 

Crying does not mean you’re not capable of dealing with your emotion. It means you are dealing with your emotions. 

3 x Quotes From Others:

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” – Martin Luther King

“It’s time to stop denying the dark side of our nature. We’re all sick twisted fucks to some extent. The denial of that fact only encourages more destruction. It’s only by accepting it that we can bring it into the light.” – Mark Manson 

“Whatever you’re doing, a sense of superiority will make you worse at it. Humility, on the other hand, will make you better. The moment you think you’ve got it all figured out, your progress stops. Instead, continue to advance and improve by reminding yourself how much more there will always be to discover. Confidence is positive and empowering, but arrogance is deadly. Be confident, but not at the expense of your respect for others. Don’t burn up all your energy proving how great you are. Invest your time and energy being thoughtful and helpful. See the victories not as proof of your supremacy, but as opportunities to offer more value to life. See the defeats not as personal affronts, but as chances to learn and grow stronger. Take care not to waste your time in delusions of grandeur. Embrace the power of confident humility, and live well.” – Writer Ralph Marston on Confident Humility

2 x Things That Helped Me Grow

1 – This Tim Ferris podcast with Hugh Jackman on Best Decisions, Daily Routines, The 85% Rule, Favorite Exercises, Mind Training, and Much More. I particularly loved their discussion about trusting your intuition. My personal notes and quotes below.

MY PERSONAL NOTES AND QUOTES:

  • Don’t settle. Find the thing that gives you the energy to go further. 
  • Your religion should be in your actions.
  • You cannot over invest in education – if you’re ever in doubt of what to do go and learn more. 
  • Everyone needs to be appreciated and to be seen for who they are and what they give. 
  • Always keep your word even if it doesn’t suit you!
  • It’s the most important thing to work out in your life – how to trust your intuition. When you have that gut feeling. Go with it. Even if it doesn’t make sense. 
  • I had much more fear of being on the wrong path than I did of any failure on the right one. 
  • You shower every day without complaining. Meditation and exercise need to be looked at the same way. 
  • The 85% Rule: Aim to workout or perform at 85%. Going at 100% doesn’t work. You actually perform better because you relax that little bit.
  • The art of living is being sensitive to the little things, to the detail.
  • The best of the best remain coached till the end of their careers. Why wouldn’t we employ that for (the art of) living.  

2 – This article from CEO Magazine titled: The everyday device in your home killing hundreds around the globe. Can you guess what that device is? This article will wake you up to the reality of how dangerous your mobile phone really is, especially for your mental health. We all need to be spending far less time on our phones and be far more cautious about putting them in the hands of our children. If you don’t have the time to read it, then have a read of these quotes:

The number of pedestrians killed on US roads has risen by a staggering 51% since 2009. In 2017, pedestrian fatalities in Australia jumped by 20% in a year, with police blaming the stupidity of smartphones.

The fact is, we are, as a species, becoming addicted to both the dopamine hits of satisfaction that our smartphones give us hundreds of times a day, while being simultaneously assaulted by the dangerous levels of cortisol they send coursing through our bodies.

Anyone over the age of 10 is already unable to imagine a world without smartphones, and as they grow into adolescence, they are likely to be gifted one of these dangerous yet vital devices by their own parents… This is “like giving them cocaine or heroin”, according to David Gillespie, the author of Teen Brain – Why Screens Are Making Your Teenager Depressed, Anxious And Prone to Lifelong Addictive Illnesses – And How to Stop it Now.

“Between 2007 and now, the rates of teenage pregnancy, and alcohol and cigarette use by teens all dropped – they’re all about half of what they were, it’s a huge achievement and I don’t know why we’re not talking more about it,” he says. “The rates of anxiety and depression for teenagers should also be halving but, instead, the rates of those things in teens have actually doubled over the same period. 

These devices were designed from day one, by Steve Jobs and company, to be “beautiful, easy to use and hard to give up”. And, knowing how addictive they would become, Jobs famously declared that he wouldn’t let his own children near them...

1 x Silly Thing To Make You Smile:

My son has been a little confused about the difference between pooing and farting recently.

So much so that every time he farts, he looks at us and says, “poo poo.”

The first time he did this, we got everything ready and changed his perfectly clean nappy. 

The second time we were fooled again so tried explaining to him what the difference between a fart and poo is. 

He thought this was hilarious.

The third time he said, “poo poo,” we had the foresight to check his nappy first.

Still nothing.

My wife looked at me and said, “He’s the boy who cried poo.”

…

Brilliant. 

Till next week…

Have a Happy Fucking Monday Everybody!

P.S. Don’t forget to exercise your silly muscle this week!

One bonus question for you all:

What do you cry about that isn’t true?

PREVIOUS MONDAY POSTS:

Motivational Mondays – 06/07/20

Happy F***ing Mondays – 29/06/20

Happy F***ing Mondays – 22/06/20

Happy F***ing Mondays – 15/06/20

Happy F***ing Mondays – 08/06/20

Happy Silly Mondays – 25/05/20

Happy Silly Mondays – 18/05/20

Happy Silly Mondays – 11/05/20

Mindset Mondays – 06/07/20

Mindset Mondays – 06/07/20

AP2

Hello fine readers and welcome to my Motivational Mondays Post – a weekly newsletter that attempts to rewrite the narrative Mondays are the most depressing day of the week. (Or at least start it off in a slightly better fashion.)

Following a 4:3:2:1 approach, it contains 4 brilliant thoughts from me, 3 admittedly better quotes from others, and 2 things I’ve been reading and/or listening to this week that have made me grow. 

As always I’ve finished with 1 something silly to hopefully make you all smile. 

Love to all X

(To my 2 regular readers: you’ll notice I’m playing around with the title to see what works best to attract more readers. If you have any ideas about a good title for this weekly post please do leave them in the comments at the bottom. I’d be grateful for your suggestions.)

4 x Brilliant Thoughts From Me:

Why it’s helpful to think you’re not a good person: A good person implies something black or white. You either are or you aren’t. This fixes your mindset. You believe you’re a good person and go at lengths to avoid being proven otherwise. You also become defensive about that belief. You feel threatened whenever this comes into question and so avoid the very conversations you need to hear so you may become a better person. We should drop the notion of what we think it means to be a good person. The way I look there is no such thing. You’re either trying to be a better person or you’re not. Don’t try to be a “good person.” Just try to be better one.

We are nothing if not all those who came before us. We will be nothing if we don’t act for those who come after. A better tomorrow has to be the spirit by which we all live.

Just remember when you think you hold the moral high ground, that even Hitler thought he was doing the right thing. 

A deliberately easy life makes us unhappy because it makes us bad at dealing with life’s inevitable difficulties, however small. Conversely a deliberately difficult life makes us happy because it builds emotional resilience. It also teaches us appreciate and enjoy the everyday most take for granted. 

3 x Admittedly Better Quotes From Others:

“You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.” – C.S. Lewis 

“Thinking is difficult, that’s why most people judge.” ― C.G. Jung

“The fact that we are connected through space and time shows that life is a unitary phenomenon, no matter how we express that fact.” – the great evolutionary biologist Lynn Margulis

2 x Things I’ve Been Listening to &/Or Reading This Week:

1 – This brilliant Happiness Lab podcast episode: How to Be a Better Ally with Dr. Laurie Santos. In this final episode of season 2, Dr Laurie Santos examines why we are often so reluctant to act against the bigotry and injustice we claim to be against, and ‘how we can match our moral beliefs with concrete action.’ (Featuring James Barr and Dan Hudson, co-hosts of the podcast ‘A Gay and a Non-Gay.’)

MY PERSONAL NOTES AND QUOTES:

  • Why do well intentioned people who believe in the good often do nothing? How can we deal with these parts of psychology so we can overcome our insecurities over acting? 
  • Any comment however awkward is better than silence. 
  • Beliefs do nothing by themselves. 
  • You’re meant to feel awkward – if you’re standing up for marginalised groups of people and you’re afraid of getting for saying the wrong things. Maybe feeling awkward- putting yourselves in those awkward positions and having those awkward conversations means you’re doing the right thing. 
  • We need to accept we are not good people yet. We need to aim for being slightly better (slightly less horrible) human beings. 
  • It’s actually a higher standard. By never assuming you are good you are always looking for how you can be better. By admitting you’re not a good person you can understand where your blind spots are and work on fixing them.
  • When you’re in a fixed mindset and you make a mistake research shows we actually shut down and withdraw from the mistake. It’s a state of non learning. This is because we don’t believe we can change or get better. We are who we are so why bother trying to learn and change. 
  • To become better allies we need to switch to having a growth mindset. 
  • Simple three letter word for developing growth mindset:  YET 
  • I’m not a good person yet but I can be if I put in some work. 
  • Reminding ourselves of our capacity for growth can have a profound effect on our willingness to engage in difficult social situations. To own up to our mistakes and our motivation to become better people. It helps us break through the discomforts that come with trying to be an ally. 
  • It’s morally wrong to leave the burden to speak out with only the marginalised groups. Science shows that it’s more effective when some one whose not from the marginalised group points out bigotry. 
  • We have far more influence than we realise. A study found that a white person speaking out against racism was looked at more positively than a black persons using the exact same words. The recipient also showed more willingness to apologise and make amends if it was a white person who had spoken out against them. 
  • We need to use our white privilege to end white privilege.
  • If I’ve learnt one thing from BLM movement its that silence means death.
  • Not everyone has to or can be on the front line but everyone needs to get off the sidelines. 
  • If Nelson Mandela -A political prisoner of one of the most racist regimes of the second half of the 20th century – can become its leader, than anything and everything is possible. 

2 – This New York Times Article titled, ‘Nature Deficit Disorder’ Is Really a Thing about how children’s behaviour may suffer from lack of access to outdoor space, a problem heightened by the pandemic. The following quotes are taken from the article:

“Ironically, the 2020 coronavirus pandemic, as tragic as it is, has dramatically increased public awareness of the deep human need for nature connection, and is adding a greater sense of urgency to the movement to connect children, families and communities to nature,” – Richard Louv, author of “Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder.”

Ming Kuo, Ph.D., an associate professor at the University of Illinois who studies urban greening, said parents, like Shore, have described how their children are “completely different” when they have access to green space. Dr. Kuo’s research has shown that access to green space decreases aggression and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder symptoms, and boosts the immune system. But she also was quick to point out an unequal access to green spaces across socioeconomic and racial lines.

1 x Silly Thing To Make You Smile:

I went to see a Physio this week about a recurring back problem I’ve been having.

He asked me to take my top off and stand directly opposite him so he could examine any imbalances.

Comparing my triceps he commented, “You’re seriously right handed.”

We were in ear shot of a couple of good looking ladies working out in their gym.

I tried to think of something witty to say.

“Let’s not jump to any conclusions about why that is,” I replied.

While smirking I continued, “I hold my boy with that arm.”

The physio laughed.

The girls did not…

Till next week,

Have a Happy Fucking Monday Everybody!

P.S. Don’t forget to exercise your silly muscle this week!

One Bonus question for you all:

What do you like to hold in your arm?

Move Like A Turtle, Move Like A Winner

AP2

My message today is simple: Try to be a little better.

I feel our generation has been raised in absolutes. Everything is either black or white. You are either right or wrong.

The truth is never that simple.

There is no black or white, only different shades of grey. No one is right – people are just different levels of wrong.

Instead of trying to become an enlighten Buddhist monk overnight, maybe just try to change one small thing – move ever so gradually in the direction of positive change.

The long term sum of continuously inching forward will surprise you.

The rabbit might win the sprint, but it will burn out in a marathon.

You can’t sprint a marathon. The bigger the goal or ambition, the steadier the pace should be.

Forget the 100m sprint.

Move like a turtle and win at the game of life instead.