Change Per Post

We have one single chance to live our lives - just one. Why should we waste even a single moment heading down a path that isn’t what we truly desire?

For much of my life, I’ve been so preoccupied with just making ends meet, that I haven’t had a lot of leftover energy to spend on creating a life that is truly amazing. Can you relate? Now that I make a comfortable living and I’m not stressing out over money constantly, the time has come to challenge myself to take things to the next level.

Money itself does not create an amazing life. Like Tim Ferriss said in his book The 4-Hour Workweek, he was making $70,000 per month but was miserable because he had no time to actually live.

That’s kind of where my life has headed. I’m comfortable, but I don’t have the time I want to live the life I want. As part of the Freelance Smackdown, I challenged Dave Navarro’s time management coaching programs to help me find a few more hours in my day that I could devote to creating passive income streams. After talking to Dave, I got really excited about what I could do with more time. Ultimately, I don’t want more time so that I can work even more. I want more time so that I can live more.

I guess I always thought that somehow this great life would just “happen,” that somewhere along the way things would just fall into place. But now I’m 32 years old and I’m realizing that there is no waiting for something to happen and that creating an amazing life doesn’t happen without a highly concentrated effort.

Have you ever stopped for a moment in time and wondered… “How did this become my life?” If we’re not careful, we can drive ourselves right into a life that bears no resemblance to what we really desire. Is it really possible to break free of an existence we don’t feel passionate about? Do the people living our dream lives have some sort of special quality that gives them a ticket to live an incredible life - or are they just making different choices?

I think it is absolutely possible. I managed to escape one unfullfilling existence (cubicle) in exchange for a new life (freelancing), where I now have a lot more freedom and flexibility. Now, my goal is to take what I learned during that process

(Continue reading this post via Self Made Chick)

This is the first of a seven-part series on the Secrets of Wellbeing. The reason I’m launching into this series is because I’m excited about what is happening in the field of psychology and how new research supports ancient teachings.

A new direction called Positive Psychology has started to take centre stage. Instead of looking at problems and how to fix them, Positive Psychology investigates what allows us to experience life at its best. In this series I’ll discuss what we can learn from this research.

What is happiness?

This question is important for each of us because our view of happiness determines how we live our life.

As Martin Seligman - the founder of Positive Psychology - points out, there are three main ways how people view happiness. Read on to find out which one of these three ways describes the way you see happiness.

The Pleasant Life or the ‘life of enjoyment’:

In this way of life we seek out pleasures and try to avoid pain. The great thing about this way of life is that we truly taste and enjoy the special moments. Like starting a powder run on a snowboard or sharing a laugh with your partner.

But there are some problems with this view of happiness. One is that pain is inevitable in life: relationships end, health can be precarious, and death is certain. This means that if we expect to gain happiness only from pleasure, we are ill equipped to deal with suffering.

The other problem is that the sum of our actual experiences, and how we judge those experiences in retrospect can be radically different. Seligman gives the following example:

When asked about a vacation - so he explains - you might answer, “It was great!”, even though the flow of experiences at the time may have been a series of unpleasant moments, such as sunburn, mosquito bites, upset stomach, scary situations, and a fear of blowing your budget.

I think the same goes for pleasant experiences. I don’t know how it is for you, but after about a week of lying about on a tropical beach I tend to get restless. I miss being creative and productive. So, even though there may be a constant flow of pleasant moments, my overall experience is that of feeling unfulfilled…

(Continue reading this post via Goodlife Zen)

Guilt was never a rational thing; it distorts all the faculties of the human mind, it perverts them, it leaves a man no longer in the free use of his reason, it puts him into confusion.
~ Edmund Burke

Guilt is, simply put, a wrong notion. Guilt is paralyzing, destructive. You think you have done something you shouldn’t have; you hadn’t done something you should have.

Guilt is the false idea that you could have done better; that you had the power to choose. But if you look deeply into it, you will see that you were helpless. There was simply no choice.

There might still be tears and sadness, efforts at reparation might still be needed – but deep down inside, there will be a measure of peace, resting in the knowledge that you were not at fault.

Understanding Guilt

The death of guilt comes with the realization that you could have done nothing else. Your emotional state, your past conditioning, your beliefs and knowledge, your instincts and intuition – they were just too strong. A beach ball, separated from its owner, pulled along by the raging waves – what can it do? It is dragged out, lost at sea. Who can blame it?

Without awareness, we are without control, completely at the mercy of our past.

Relax your body; close your eyes. Think of the last time you felt angry. Place yourself, as best as you can, back in time…

(Continue reading this post via Urban Monk)