Tag: routine

4-3-2-1 Mindset Mondays

4-3-2-1 Mindset Mondays

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Hello lovely readers and welcome back to Mindset Mondays! The only weekly post that forces you to make resolutions you can’t possibly meet.

Following a 4-3-2-1 approach, it contains 4 thoughts from me (that you should ignore), 3 quotes from others (that you should read), and 2 things I’ve been reading, watching or listening to this week that have helped me grow.

As always I’ve finished with 1 joke that’s so bad, it’s good.

Let’s begin!

4 x Thoughts:

1) You have to stop pouring water in your glass if you want to drink from it. 

2) Concentrate on improving your routine – the actions that you take everyday. This is far more important than achieving any goal.

3) As a rule: The more needs or wants a person has, the unhappier he or she is. 

4) A period of reflection does more for the soul than sitting down to outline goals for the year. When we take the time to reflect on our values. When we look deeply at how we have failed to live up-to them. It’s through this deeper reflection that we derive the most insight. Then it’s from those lessons that the goals we really want to chase after become clear. Those goals becoming, in turn, an expression of your true values. An expression of the things that make you feel whole. That make you feel integral.

3 x Quotes:

“Learning how to focus and prioritize your thoughts effectively based on finely honed personal values is perhaps the greatest and most important struggle in life.”

– MARK MANSON. 

“In a crisis, the inevitable suffering that life entails can rapidly make a mockery of the idea that happiness is the proper pursuit of the individual.”

– JORDAN B. PETERSON

“One day, in retrospect, the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful.” 

– SIGMUND FREUD

2 x Things:

1) This Mark Manson article: 1,273 People Share Their Best Life Lessons from 2020. Mark collated a series of the most common lessons learnt from his readers after asking them the question, “What have been your biggest lessons from 2020?” It’s about a 20 minute read but well worth your time. I’ve listed my favourite 3 lessons below:

  1. You Only Really Know Who You Are When Everything Is Taken From You
  2. A Crisis Doesn’t Change People; It Amplifies Who They Already Are
  3. Most Things Are Both Good and Bad at the Same Time

2) This blog post: “100 Tips for a Better Life” by Conor Barnes. This list is awesome! I picked out ten of my favs (which was difficult!) – listed below:

  1. Discipline is superior to motivation. The former can be trained, the latter is fleeting. You won’t be able to accomplish great things if you’re only relying on motivation. 
  2. Cultivate a reputation for being dependable. Good reputations are valuable because they’re rare (easily destroyed and hard to rebuild). You don’t have to brew the most amazing coffee if your customers know the coffee will always be hot.
  3. Selfish people should listen to advice to be more selfless, selfless people should listen to advice to be more selfish. This applies to many things. Whenever you receive advice, consider its opposite as well. You might be filtering out the advice you need most. 
  4. Defining yourself by your suffering is an effective way to keep suffering forever (ex. incels, trauma). 
  5. Keep your identity small. “I’m not the kind of person who does things like that” is not an explanation, it’s a trap. It prevents nerds from working out and men from dancing. 
  6. To start defining your problems, say (out loud) “everything in my life is completely fine.” Notice what objections arise. 
  7. Sometimes unsolvable questions like “what is my purpose?” and “why should I exist?” lose their force upon lifestyle fixes. In other words, seeing friends regularly and getting enough sleep can go a long way to solving existentialism. 
  8. Human mood and well-being are heavily influenced by simple things: Exercise, good sleep, light, being in nature. It’s cheap to experiment with these.
  9. You have vanishingly little political influence and every thought you spend on politics will probably come to nothing. Consider building things instead, or at least going for a walk. 
  10. Bad things happen dramatically (a pandemic). Good things happen gradually (malaria deaths dropping annually) and don’t feel like ‘news’. Endeavour to keep track of the good things to avoid an inaccurate and dismal view of the world. 

1 x Joke:

I’m happy to report that this year we gave 2020 the send off that it deserved! That’s right ladies and gentleman, we were in bed by 9:30.

Before that, however, we managed to have a wee party with close relatives. Of course it wasn’t a New Year’s Eve party so much as a “Truck Off 2020 party.”

Why “Truck Off” you ask?

Well, as I explained to my family, all you have to do is ask my 2 year old son to say it! Because he struggles to pronounce the “tr” sound in truck, when he says “Truck Off 2020,” he means it!

Thanks ladies and gentlemen. I’m here all week! I sincerely hope you had a wonderful New Years Celebration! As always I welcome ALL thoughts and opinions on this blog. Please let us know below.

One bonus question to finish:

What’s the biggest lesson that you can implement from 2020?

PREVIOUS MONDAY POST:

Mindset Mondays – 21/12/20

Tuesday’s Top Tip

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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

Mindset Mondays – 19/10/20

Mindset Mondays – 19/10/20

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Hello lovely readers and welcome back to my new and improved Mindset Mondays post – the only weekly newsletter that turns out all the lights before handing you a lit match…

For those who don’t know, each week I try my best to give your Mondays a much needed boost by sharing 3 thoughts from me (that you should probably ignore), 2 quotes from others (that you probably shouldn’t), and 1 thing I’ve been reading or listening to that has helped me grow.

As always I finish with a joke that’s either so good or so bad, you won’t be able to help it but laugh.

Let’s begin!

3 x Thoughts From Me:

Attachments/Wanting = Unhappiness. Letting go/Generosity = Happiness. 

Some mornings, when life inevitably gets in the way, routine is the first thing that goes out the window. We shouldn’t let this get us down. Instead we should see it as a wonderful opportunity to practise mindfulness – to be at peace with the fact that things didn’t go according to our perfect little plans (because it really doesn’t matter). It’s also a great opportunity to practise flexibility – to work out how you can make it up later on, or fit it around a different schedule. Maybe you only meditate for 5 mins today, or maybe you can only afford to get in 5 pushups? If you can look back and say you still managed something, I’m guessing you did much better today than you think. Routine is important but it’s not the be-all and end-all, being flexible is equally important. In fact, you need to allow for flexibility within your routine. Otherwise you’re liable to throw in the towel completely.

Ignorance is bliss… but only for you, for everyone else it’s miserable. That’s not to say ignorance is unforgivable. We’re all ignorant to a large degree. The important thing is not to be deliberately ignorant about matters that affect us all. Listen to the facts. Don’t simply choose to believe something so you don’t have to feel shame. Shame is a useful emotion designed to make you change for the better. It works wonders. Don’t avoid it. Accept it. Process it. Then move on with the greater meaning and purpose that you have derived from it. 

2 x Quotes From Others:

“Open your mouth only if what you are going to say is more beautiful than silence.” – Buddha

“The desire for a more positive experience is itself a negative experience. And, paradoxically, the acceptance of one’s negative experience is itself a positive experience.” – Mark Manson

1 x Thing That Has Helped Me Grow

This insightful Happiness Lab podcast episode with Dr. Laurie Santos: Happiness Lessons of The Ancients: The Buddha From the show description: ‘The Buddha was born to a royal family… and it shocked him when he found out that no amount of money or power could keep suffering and loss at bay forever. The quest to accept that life brings us pain was key to the development of Buddhism as a major religion. Dr Laurie Santos is joined by Liz Angowski and Robert Wright (author of ‘Why Buddhism is True‘) to explore The Buddha’s teachings about unhappiness and how mindfulness meditation can help us come to terms with the negative feelings we all experience from time to time.’ My personal show notes below.

  • It’s not that beautiful things don’t make us happy but that they change. We change with them. To all happiness there is unhappiness and suffering. There is impermanence. There is a flip side. Things age. People die. 
  • Buddishm teaches us that we don’t see the world clearly by nature.  If we could see the world more clearly we would become happier and we would become better people.  
  • What is central to all suffering? That fact that we always want something more. This gratification never lasts. From a Darwinian survival perspective this makes total sense. Being restless and unhappy drives us to find food or have sex. Then we’re satisfied for a while before we are left wanting more. 
  • Unfortunately we are wired to think once we have sex with that person or eat that great meal or attain that big house then we will live happily ever after. Of course we don’t. It doesn’t matter how much you accumulate you will always go back to that unhappy restless base line. This is an example of our delusion. We are designed to keep convincing ourselves of this. That we will be happy after we have just this little bit more money or recognition, etc. 
  • The mind isn’t designed to bring us happiness. That’s not high on natural selection’s agenda. Understanding that is the beginning of seeking a more enduring kind of happiness. Buddhism offers us this path.

1 x Silly Thing To Make You Smile:

Struggling for a story this week folks so thought I’d leave you with this comic instead – Hope you enjoy!

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

Till next time, I sincerely hope you have a very happy Monday!

One bonus question for you all:

How can you add flexibility to your routine?

PREVIOUS MONDAY POST:

Mental Mondays – 12/10/20