Tag: Daily Habits

The Decisions We Make

Achieving Goals, Happiness, Health, Leadership, Relationships, Success

The other evening, I was getting ready for bed and was about to wash my face and brush my teeth when in the bathroom I saw a bee sat on the windowsil. My first reaction was fear, and my mind started racing with imaginings of the bee stinging me. At this point, I was presented with a choice: be scared or be curious.

I chose the latter and moved in closer to have a look at the bee. It was alive, and it seemed to be sleeping. I noticed it was a honeybee, and my mind became filled with compassion. The bee must have been flying around all day looking for pollen to make honey and was exhausted. I left the bee there to rest, and in the morning, I opened the window, and after a while, it woke up and flew out to head home.

The point is that when we are faced with making a decision we can decide what to do based on fear, anger and other negative states, or we can make it based on curiosity, empathy and other positive states. The choice before we make the decision is whether we react or respond to circumstances. Do we step back or attack, or do we lean forward or empathise? Whichever we choose can become a habit, so choose carefully.

Chances To Practice Good Habits

Achieving Goals, Happiness, Health, Success

In mindfulness meditation the aim is to focus on the breath and when your mind wanders to gently bring it back to the breath over and over to better control your mind and be more present. However, in order to come back to the breath we need something to come back from. The same can be said of all the things in life that we do not like. They are a chance to practice good habits.

Wishing someone would hurry up is a chance to practice patience. Being faced with an angry person is a chance to practice empathy, as to being angry causes the other person to suffer. Feeling angry ourselves is a chance to practice self control. And on it goes.

Everything in life can be seen as a way to become happier and more fulfilled by practicing good habits. We are what we repeatedly do, so practicing the things that will make us the kind of person that we want to be is a good way to live your life. If practiced well then we become the person that we are trying to be.

The Power of Momentum

Achieving Goals, Happiness, Health, Leadership, Success

When a large ship wants to change direction it’s turning circle is quite big because it has inertia, or momentum, to keep going in the direction it has been traveling in. Our lives are no different. Our habits keep us moving in a particular direction and we have to work against that momentum if we want to change direction.

On the flip side, if you want to achieve something in life starting from a standstill is difficult and small barriers will prevent us from forward movement. For example, if a train is standing still you can put a one inch block in front of the wheel and it will struggle to move at all. If a train is going at full speed it can smash through a concrete wall.

Momentum matters. Building the right habits gives you that momentum. Doing the right things everyday will give your life an intention and a direction. We are what we repeatedly do.

Awaken The Greatness In You

Achieving Goals, Happiness, Health, Success, The Pathway To Fulfilment

Once or twice in a generation there are born people of greatness. People like Nelson Mandela or Martin Luther King come into the world and make it a better place for us all. The difference between us and them is that we often are waiting for people like them to turn up and save us. This is not likely to happen. Therefore, we need to save ourselves.

Not an easy task. The problem is in thinking that such greatness is something people are born with, but history shows us that people of greatness are molded by the circumstances they are in and the decisions they make every day to respond to those circumstances.

Even though Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 27 years he demanded respect from the Prison Officers every day. That was a decision made once and kept for 27 years. Seth Godin has written a blog post every day for many years and has now posted over 7000 blog posts because he made the decision decades ago that he will write a new blog post tomorrow. Once decided no more thought needs to go into it, because he knows what he will be sharing with the world tomorrow. This takes discipline no doubt, but it can be done, we just need to decide.

There are many in the world who go through difficult times, and I am not dismissing these difficulties, I am saying that you choose to see yourself as a victim or as someone who will take ownership of your difficulties and make them better, in whatever way you can. If we think of ourselves as victims and wait for someone else to come along and save us, this does us a disservice to our own abilities.

The future you is capable of extraordinary things, if you decide that you can and work on fulfilling that belief every single day. You are your own saviour. Your circumstances, though challenging, can mould and awaken the greatness in you, if you believe it is possible and live up to that belief every day.