You’re lying in bed at night, trying to fall asleep. As you start to doze off, you are overcome with an incredible feeling. You can’t quite put your finger on it. Did you turn off the oven after dinner? No, that’s not it. Did you prepare the coffee for tomorrow? Yes, so that’s not it. That report for work…did you forget something? No, you went over it three times, so that’s not it. You feel like the room is closing in. Something is definitely wrong. You’re having trouble breathing and you can feel your blood pressure rising. Then it hits you…
…the stress that’s been building slowly, from everyday pressures, has finally got to you; you’re having a panic attack.
Life is busy, and those events and pressures create stress that has a negative effect on your mind and body. Job performance, relationships, children, schedules, traffic congestion, money problems, illness, and interactions with negative people all contribute to your stress. You’ve got to reduce the amount of stress in your life to be healthy. So what can you do?
Meditation is a wonderful long term solution to reducing stress. Meditation promotes relaxation, gives you a sense of well-being, peace and calm, and a clear the mind. It also can help ease health concerns. It helps you restore your mental equilibrium and balance. But how do you fit in another activity into your already busy life? You can combine meditation with a very basic, everyday activity that is essential to your needs, and that activity is cooking. There are many forms and levels of meditation. Start out with the enjoyment of a simple task and work your way up to the Loving-Kindness level.
One of the most basic forms of meditation is finding peace and enjoyment in simple daily tasks. Cooking is a simple daily task. You can also attempt complex recipes to give yourself more practice at both cooking and meditation. Easy soups and casseroles now become a peace-enriched event. Soak up even more peace by trying a more in-depth recipe by extending your experience in the kitchen.
Silent reflection is a great way to get in touch with your emotions and thoughts. If you let your mind wander, there are many realizations and epiphanies that you can allow yourself to acknowledge. Cooking is a great place to let your mind wander as you perform the simple tasks, and be aware of where your thoughts take you.
Repetition is relaxing and therapeutic by focusing only on the task at hand. Cooking is full of repetitive action, from cutting, to peeling, to stirring, to grating, to mixing, and much more.
Merrium-Webster defines Mindfulness as: 1. the quality or state of being mindful 2. the practice of maintaining a nonjudgmental state of heightened or complete awareness of one’s thoughts, emotions, or experiences on a moment-to-moment basis; also: such a state of awareness. Cooking is a great activity in which to practice Mindfulness. Be present in the moment to take in the sensory information of the food you are cooking. The smells, the colors, the tastes, the feeling of the food, and the sounds are all senses to be aware of. What emotions do these experiences evoke? What thoughts do they bring to mind? Be aware of these emotions and thoughts, and acknowledge them.
The Loving-Kindness level of meditation takes the most focus and attention. You may need to work up to this level before you attempt it. You must develop a love for yourself first, and then work toward others. Infuse the food with love and kindness by actively reflecting on yourself or the loved ones you are cooking for as you cook. Love is the secret ingredient of the tastiest dishes, after all! Typically, you would visualize yourself or your loved ones smiling at you, and feeling happy. Visualization is just one form of the Loving-Kindness Meditation. To incorporate this into cooking, visualize yourself or your loved ones smiling and happy as they (or you) eat the food you have prepared.
So what will you cook to help you relieve your stress?
Crystal is the founder of Simply Playful Fare, a food blog with an emphasis on cooking from scratch and a twist of humor. She’s a native Montanan who loves to create. She has always been passionate about cooking, baking, and eating, and food has been a huge part of her family. She learned how to cook from her Grandmother (who learned to cook from her French Grandmother) and her Mother. Writing is her other passion, after her husband of course. She has a degree in English with an emphasis in creative writing.
The post 5 Reasons Cooking is Actually Good Meditation in Disguise appeared first on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement.
You’re driving in a new city (perhaps going over to a friend’s place for the first time). The roads are not familiar to you. You have a destination to reach but aren’t sure how to actually get there.
Using trial-error approach, you try to figure out which road is going to take you to the destination. Now unless you’re really lucky, it may take you hours (or even days) to figure out how to reach your friend.
Now consider using a GPS system installed in your car. You set the destination and it quickly plots out the shortest path to destination. No need to worry about being in an unfamiliar place. The GPS will guide you. Turn left here. Go straight there. Turn right there etc.
The fact that you’re reading this post proves that you’re a fairly smart person who has dreams and wants to make them come true. Perhaps you’re a regular reader of blogs like this one and are constantly looking to grow and improve.
You understand a lot about growth and development and can surely talk intelligently about it; however the rate of your own growth is average at best. Somehow the ideas are failing to convert into tangible results. And you’re looking for the answer to this question. What is missing?
You are missing the GPS that’ll guide you.
WHY THE COMMON WAY IS NOT THE BEST WAY FOR YOU?
If you browse through various self help blogs, you’ll find that most posts are based on defining the tips, tricks and steps needed to achieve a certain goal. 5 ways to do this, 7 tips to achieve that, 9 things to avoid…. the topics are endless.
While there is nothing wrong about these ideas and most of them make good sense, they are not enough to “skyrocket” your growth. Most of the advice gives you a whole list of possible options. But how do you use them effectively? How do you find the option that is best suited for you personally, from a post that is intended to help an audience as a whole?
BUILDING A FOUNDATION
In order to pursue focussed growth, give up the idea of using the exact tips and tricks as they are presented.
Instead, you can build a “foundation”. The foundation helps you to decide what will serve you best personally. You still use the principles you learn from the books and blogs but now you can use them in a focussed way to create the best results for you.
The foundation acts like a GPS that helps you to find the fastest route to your destination. There are other roads. They shall take you to different destinations in the future. But for now, you’re concerned with meeting your friend.
But before we formulate our own foundation, let’s take a look at some real life examples to get an idea of what the foundation will look like.
HOW TRUE GROWTH ACTUALLY TAKES PLACE?
These real life stories put things in proper perspective.
The creator of this website, Steven Aitchison has an interesting story. At the early stages of his life, Steven had serious doubts about his identity and role in life. He even considered committing suicide at the age of 19/20 (just read the “About” page). But the book “Think and Grow Rich” helped Steven to make a profound realization of the “power of thoughts”. Creating an amazing life is a choice was an amazing discovery. Steven went on to earn a Bsc in Psychology, become an addiction worker and create this amazing platform “Change Your Thoughts”.
You are probably familiar with Steve Pavlina. Steve got into the destructive habit of shoplifting while in college, getting caught multiple times. A couple of days in jail cell sent Steve thinking seriously about redefining his life. The experience was enough to make Steve commit to become the best human being he was capable of becoming. With a new sense of purpose, Steve re-enrolled for college (he got expelled from his previous college), taking triple than normal course load and graduated with two degrees in just three semesters. Time management became top priority. After college, he went on to run a successful games business for ten years creating the award winning game Dweep. Later he gave up games business and launched StevePavlina.com that went to become a pioneer of personal development.
The third story is my own, because there is no better way to learn than from our own experiences. At the age of 16, I came across a book that totally contradicted the path I would have taken automatically in life. Growing up in a middle class family, the model of living the ideal life was to get good grades in school, get admission in a good college, find a job, settle down, don’t create waves, don’t ask too many question, be happy in the little you have. However, “The Magic of Thinking Big” by David J Schwartz made a strong point about thinking big in life and how it can help you to live your dreams. I did not blindly believe in the book but it did invoke a strong curiosity. I remember thinking to myself, if what this book says is true, I don’t have to settle for mediocrity in life. I can create a beautiful and amazing life. Fast forward seven years, I feel grateful for having read the book and constantly strive to improve and seek to create a life of meaning, abundance and freedom. I launched my personal growth blog about a year back (I am re-launching it now).
If you observe the details of the stories above, you can conclude the following –
A conscious choice was made in the moment of profound realization.
Steve Pavlina realized that he needed to redefine his life and chose to create a better life. Steven Aitchison realized the power of thought and chose to center his growth around this idea of self reliance. I chose to break social pattern of mediocrity with the help of empowering big thoughts.
The growth that followed from the moment of realization was based on a certain “theme”.
Steve Pavlina began to focus extensively on time management to maximize his growth. Steven Aitchison growth was centered the power of thoughts, actions and beliefs. I focussed exclusively on thinking big to expand my options for a better future life.
To stress the importance of conscious choice, realize that many people end up in jail, many people read books on creative ideas, and yet these same events triggered a turning point in Steve Pavlina and Steven Aitchison’s life. See the role of conscious choice? They chose to make things different….
The “theme” helps you to create focussed results. It helps you to clearly define which are the habits, tips and ideas that will directly help you to grow, and which ones won’t. It is the GPS in your journey of life.
It would have been highly unlikely for Steve Pavlina to explore spirituality while working hard on his time management. At that moment, graduating with two degrees in three semesters was the goal. Nothing else mattered. Time was of primary value. Not spirituality, not simplicity. Only productivity.
FOUNDATION = FOCUSSED THEME FOR GROWTH
There can be many more themes that can be used to centre your growth around. Here are a few common ones that are very intuitive to understand and use.
Courage/Fear
You need this theme when you have unrealized dreams but hesitate to go after them in the fear of disrupting what you already have.
Habits
You need this one when you’re disorganized and seriously wish to put your life in order. You want get rid of disempowering habits.
Personal Excellence
This one helps you to improve the overall quality of life and not just in a few specific areas.
Simplicity
You need this if you feel that your life is cluttered with lots of unnecessary things and activities. You strive to get rid of the unessential to create some space and peace.
Freedom
You wish to create the freedom of creating the kind of life you want. This includes career choices, financial stability, travelling etc.
Finance
Money has its own role to play in life and you want to ensure you create plenty for a smooth living.
The list is not exhaustive so feel free to come up with your own themes. The idea is to simply find an area for focussed development.
USING THE FOUNDATION
Once you define your foundational theme, you can begin to find what actions will help you achieve your goals.
The foundational theme acts like the GPS. The GPS plots the shortest path and helps you to decide which roads to take and which ones to avoid. Similarly, your foundational theme acts as a guidance system to help you realize the actions that will help you to accomplish your goals.
Over time, you can move from one foundational theme to another, but at any given moment of time, the fewer themes you use, the better it will be. Overall you may want to develop in various areas of your life like career, habits, beliefs (different themes) but you want to focus on them one at a time (for example, You may want to focus on increasing your work productivity this year).
IMPLEMENTING FOCUSSED GROWTH
What you’ve read and understood so far will be of no value unless you can implement it in your daily life. So here’s a simple action plan to help you effectively implement the above ideas. All you need is a pen and paper. Get it right now. Why wait to improve your life?
Answer these two questions –
Which area of your life needs most attention right now OR which area of your life do you want to improve the most?
Whatever area pops up in your head is going to be the “foundational theme” for your growth. Use your intuition and simply pick one area. If you are having trouble in choosing from the many possible options, just pick any. The order in which you grow in different areas of your life won’t matter. What really matters is that you grow.
If you’re someone who has always been shy, you can choose “confidence” as your theme. If you feel fear in chasing your dream, perhaps you need “courage”. If you feel overwhelmed by the way you normally spend your day, then “simplicity” needs to be cultivated.
What people and resources will help you to achieve growth in your foundational theme?
If you’re reading this post, then this question should be easy to answer (assuming you read such self help blogs regularly). What you need is a few books, development blogs, audio podcasts that guide you to grow in the field of your chosen theme. Look for the ideas and advice that are directly related to your selected theme to implement them.
ONE WEEK PLAN
You should look forward to implement any one of the following ideas for a week.
Read one book on your theme and implement its ideas. OR
Find the top three blog posts that are directly related to your theme and implement their ideas. OR
Listen to an audio podcast and follow the lessons mentioned there.
Will focussed actions for a week be enough for you to succeed?
Probably not. Any worthy goal takes time. But a start is better than no start and a good start can take you pretty far.
THERE IS MORE TO THE PICTURE THAN YOU REALIZE
Why should you grow?
Life has a natural tendency to strive for a higher ideal. Take a look at how plants grow. As the seed ruptures and a small plant emerges, it grows towards the direction of sunlight. It wants to grow and live. It should therefore, be of no surprise to you that you yourself have dreams and want them to come true.
You affect everybody
It may not be obvious but how you live your life directly affects the whole planet (I am not exaggerating).
GO FOR IT
If I were to summarize this whole post, it will be just two words.
Focussed growth…
Next time you go through a self-help blog, don’t just read through all the advice. Don’t just aim for the feel-good factor. Hold an attitude of intentional learning. You’re looking to grow in a specific field and you want to find out valuable insights that will help you to achieve your goal.
Answer the above two questions. Go mad chasing your dream this week. And then report back in the comment section to inspire others as well.
Grow Conscious.
The post The Zen of Personal Development: How to Skyrocket your own Personal Growth appeared first on Change your thoughts.
Happiness can be seen as a state of mind. It’s how we perceive our lives and the world around us. But our inside thoughts can be radically shaped by our actions and behavior in the outside world. Just like forcing a smile can make you feel better, our habits can subtly influence our feelings.
And people don’t necessarily build the healthiest habits. How many people do you know that smoke or drink to excess? We all have the potential to build destructive habits that could be hindering our happiness.
Since happiness is so important, it’s essential to discover these destructive and damaging habits so we can correct them. Otherwise happiness might just become harder and harder to find.
Here are seven destructive habits that might be keeping you from being happy.
1. The need to please others
There’s nothing wrong with finding joy when people are pleased with you. But there’s a big difference between “liking’ when people are pleased with you and “needing” to please people. It’s that “need” that becomes troublesome.
Needing other people’s approval is harmful because you give away your own personal power. Instead of doing things for your own reasons, you start to do them for the sake of others. Instead of listening to your heart for guidance, you listen to other’s opinions.
Your life is yours to live. Once others start dictating your actions and decisions, it becomes much harder to live the life you want.
2. Defining success too narrowly
We all define our own success as a goal or vision based upon what we want out of life. But when we define success too narrowly and it becomes specifically about reaching “X”, we can make ourselves unhappy.
If you’ve set in your mind that success only happens when you reach that goal, you’ll always feel like a failure until you’ve reached it. As a result, you’ll feel unhappy and dissatisfied with how your life is going.
Rather than using only one narrow measure for success, think of multiple ways to define it. If you take a good look at your life, you’ll probably notice a lot of things you’re doing well. Don’t discount all the things that are going great in life simply because you haven’t reached a narrowly defined goal.
3. Complaining too much
Complaints can serve a real purpose if they help you get something off your chest or bring about real change. Voicing your frustrations is a natural way of dealing with them.
But complaining too much is counter-productive. Rather than serving a useful purpose, it becomes about bitterness and negativity.
Instead of getting upset at important, meaningful problems, you get mad at the little things that normally don’t matter. That can make it seem as if the world is full of problems and difficulties that really aren’t there. It’s hard to feel good about yourself when the whole world seems negative.
4. Trying to control everything
Life is inherently unpredictable. Even if you plan everything out, something can always come along to change things.
Trying to plan out and control everything will only drive you crazy. There’s simply no way to account for every contingency.
There is always an element of uncertainty about the future. Nothing is completely predictable. Sometimes you just have to let things happen and stop trying so hard to control everything.
5. Comparing your story to everyone else’s
There’s a lot of truth in the saying, “the grass is always greener on the other side”. No matter how good you have it, someone somewhere will always seem to have it just a little better.
It’s hard not to compare yourself to others. Often that’s how we gauge our progress and find motivation to do even more with our lives.
But if you’re constantly examining how good others’ lives are, you start to forget all the good things going on in your own. And that can lead to low self-esteem and depression.
Instead of spending so much time noticing what others have, start reflecting on all the wonderful things you have going for you.
6. Dwelling on negative experiences from the past
If you spend a lot of time thinking about the mistakes and regrets from the past, it will come at the expense of today. Anger, frustration and resentment can act as emotional dead weight and make it difficult to find happiness. Until you learn from them and move on, you’ll spend too much time on events that are completely outside of your control.
Your past is over and done so there’s very little you can do about it. Any time and energy that you spend thinking and worrying about them would be better spent on situations that are happening in your life right now.
7. Being too hard on yourself
Sometimes it shocks me how critical people can be of their own mistakes and failures. They’ll say horrible things to themselves, even about the simplest errors.
It’s important to live and work in a mindset that is free of harsh criticism and self-deprecating thoughts. By coming down on yourself too harshly, you’ll second guess trying something new or hold back from taking risks. The last thing you want to do is limit an action that might make you happier.
Instead of being a critic, you should be your own cheerleader. Cheerleaders keep rooting for their team even if they’re not doing well. If you get into this “cheerleader” mindset, you’ll keep your spirits high and feel the freedom to move your life in the direction you want.
Steve is the writer behind Do Something Cool where he blogs about travel, motivation, self improvement and adventure. He’s always looking for ways to make life more interesting. For fresh ideas on living life to the fullest, join his newsletter.
The post 7 Destructive Habits to Get Rid of If You Want to Be Happy appeared first on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement.
Sig Nordal 