How To Make Healthy Lifestyle Changes That Last Forever – The Ultimate Guide

Beautiful sunset

“Its hard to wait around for something you know might never happen; but its harder to give up when you know its everything you want.” – Unknown

What good is exercising if you only do it for three weeks once per year?

What’s the point in thinking positively if you snap back to negativity the next day?

Temporary change just isn’t very useful. But if you can make a healthy lifestyle change last a lifetime, the value is unmeasurably high.

For the past six months, my personal growth rate has skyrocketed, and the healthy changes I’ve made are lasting. It has everything to do with my strategy, but that’s not what’s so interesting to me. The interesting part of this is how I had this potential all along, bottled up.

I could have done this five years ago, but I didn’t know how. My attempts to change had no chance.Read More

How To Use Mini Habits To Break Free From The “I Hate My Job” Blues

Job Satisfaction

Did you know that two of every three people in North America don’t like their job? Some go as far as to say, “I hate my job,” but stay in it to pay the bills.

According to data from a 2012 survey (pictured), just 35% of us are somewhat satisfied or satisfied with our jobs! Add to that all of the people who are unhappily unemployed, and things look even worse. In addition to this, the Deep Existence poll which asks, “What aspect of life are you LEAST pleased with right now?”, has 109 responses. The #1 response, with 22% of the votes, is Business & Career.

So when a reader asked me for advice about how she could break free from a job that was bringing her down, I knew she wasn’t alone. Here is her verbatim question. My response, and how to break free using Mini Habits, follows.Read More

3 Ways Positivity Can Silently Kill Your Goals, Scientifically Backed

What?

“Ha! You said positivity can kill goals. Huh? You were serious? W…what?”

A cheerful disposition can derail your goals if you’re not careful. To make sure it doesn’t happen to you, here are the three things to watch out for and what to do about them…

#1: Being Happier Makes You Think More Abstractly, But Concrete Goals Require Concrete Thinking

What’s the difference between a happy and unhappy person?

According to five experiments (by Professors Labroo and Patrick), a key difference between these two people is where their mind is focused. Experiments began with manipulating participants’ moods (such as by asking them to “think of the best/worst day of your life”), and then they were tested on how abstract their interpretation of various data was. In one experiment, after their emotions were manipulated, they would ask them for words related to “soda.” Participants might say things like, “beverage” (abstract) or “Pepsi” (concrete).

They concluded from the study’s five experiments that happier moods contributed to more abstract thinking. But why?Read More

Myth: Minimalists Hate Possessions

diamonds

“Minimalism is the intentional promotion of the things we most value and the removal of anything that distracts us from it.”
― Joshua Becker

Truth: minimalists love their possessions more than most others.

It comes down to math. If you’re not one of the mega-billionaires, you have finite financial resources. Even millionaires have a limit of expensive “toys” to choose from. With your resources, the choice is simple – accumulate “stuff” in quantity or pursue fewer items of quality.

Minimalists prefer fewer items, which affords them greater quality on the items they choose to own.Read More

How To Focus On One Task Without Second-Guessing Yourself (The Ultimate Guide)

Three Focus Levels

These are life’s three focus levels. Nobody plans for cat vomit.

A stranger fooled me 20 years ago.

I was eight years old, walking down a Florida sidewalk on a clear, sunny day. Bingo! I saw a quarter on the ground. I reached down to pick it up, imagining the candy I could buy with it (I was eight), but my fingers were rendered ineffective by a gob of clear glue securing the quarter to the sidewalk.

george-michael-snoopy-walk

Cue George Michael’s “sad walk.”

Similar to a coin glued to the sidewalk, focusing looks attainable – all you have to do is pick one thing and concentrate on it. But it’s not often easy to focus when the time comes. We’re quick to blame distractions for ruining our focus, but that’s kind of like blaming ice cream for eating it.
Read More