The Power of Habit – How to Form Good Habits and Break Bad Habits

10/13/2012

“Habit – 062420119475 by roland, on Flickr” is made available under Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0) license.

The Power of Habit is a powerful book. I read it in the middle of the process of forming some habits and the book made so much sense to me. I’m focusing on forming two habits right now – exercising at least 4 times a week and meditating every day, and today is Day 27 since I started. A reliable source (aka the Internet) says it takes 66 days to form a habit. I’m not trusting it yet but I’m testing it. The former belief that I heard was 21 days, and I can tell you it’s not true. And I’ll tell you why in a second.

How to form a habit?

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In The Power of Habit, the author Charles Duhigg explains how a habit is formed, which is a very simple process.

It starts with a trigger or a “cue” as the author puts it in the book (for example, seeing a candy jar), and your reaction to it (reaching into the candy jar to grab a candy) has been repeated so many times that it becomes a routine. In the end, there’s a reward for your reaction (tasting the sweetness on your taste buds). The key to the chain reaction is the craving for the reward (craving for the sweet taste). And the key in forming a habit is as you repeat the routine again and again, your brain will stop making decisions on what to do and whether to do it. Once you see the “cue”, you’ll automatically react, and that’s how a habit is formed.

Do you want to form a habit? Decide on a reward you want to get out of the habit and make sure you want it enough to have the “craving”.

This helps me understand how I’m forming the two habits. It’s Day 27, and I’ve been doing pretty well except for Day 22, this Monday, when I didn’t meditate. That’s why I don’t think the theory that you can form a habit in 21 days works.

In my case, the habits I’m forming are exercising at least 4 times a week and meditating every day. I do them after work. So every day after dinner at around 7pm, it’s my “cue” to exercise and then meditate. It helps to keep it public. I keep track of my progress on Twitter. Every week I crave for the time on Sunday when I can put in “on track” in my tweet. It gives me a sense of accomplishment. More importantly, I stick to the routine to avoid feeling guilty.

Have you experienced this? You made a plan to work out, and you gave up after a few tries and couldn’t stick to it. Did you feel guilty for giving it up? Yep, that’s the feeling I’m avoiding. The strongest motivation is not to seek pleasure but to avoid pain. If at the end of the week I can’t mark “on track” on my Twitter, I would have the painful guilty feeling.

To start is the easy part, but to stick to it is more difficult.

How can I not give up so easily?

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1. Have a plan.

For example, you’re a student and you have a workout plan. Do you tend to stray away from the workout plan when you have too much homework or during the finals week? If you’re working, do you tend to stray away from your exercise when work gets demanding and you have to work overtime? The Power of Habit shows if you have a plan to address the obstacles beforehand, you’re less likely to have the obstacles catch you off guard and give up.

Knowing you tend to stray away from your workout plan when your other priorities need more time and energy, if you can think of ways to work around it and stick to your plan, for example, getting up early in the morning to exercise, you won’t give up so easily.

2. Learn from successful stories.

As a matter of fact, you don’t even have to learn. You just need to know some people out there have succeed in what you’re trying to achieve. It gives you faith. And faith is another key factor in forming a habit, according to the book. It makes you believe it’s completely possible to form the habit. When you start to have doubt, that’s when you give up. Seek out the successful stories to strengthen your faith.

What are the benefits of forming a habit?

You mean besides forming a habit that you can benefit from for life?

1. It strengthens your willpower.

Willpower or self-discipline is like a muscle. You need to practice it to make it stronger. The process of forming a habit is the practice. When you successfully form a habit, your willpower and self-discipline get strengthened. The blog post Habit or Discipline elaborates this benefit really well. Again, willpower is like a muscle, so don’t overuse it to exhaust it either.

2. It spills over to other aspects of your life.

What do I mean by that? When you form a habit, you’ll start to notice positive changes in other aspects of your life. For example, as you stick to your work out plan, you may start to eat healthier or feel more energized at work. In the article The Amazing Power of Changing Habits, you’ll see as the writer started to change his eating habit, he experienced another 10 positive changes in his life. And a lot of them are not even associated with his eating habit.

How can I break bad habits?

1. Look for an alternative route.

Remember the chain reaction I talked about in the beginning: cue–>routine–>reward (The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg)? The book suggests looking for a different “routine” to achieve the same “reward”. For example, you have a habit of having a drink or two after a day of stressful work. The alternative route to relieve the stress would be to listen to some soothing music or take a walk. Whichever route you take, the bottom line is to achieve the same goal.

2. Develop self-awareness.

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Self-awareness helps you recognize what triggers your habitual reaction to a “cue” and what “reward” you get from the habitual reaction. Without good self-awareness, you’re unlikely to realize what you do routinely is forming a bad habit. Every Friday for the past few weeks I have been getting a seasonal coffee drink from Starbucks in addition to the weekly drink I get on Saturday. It’s not a life threatening bad habit, but with the amount of sugar and calories in it, it’s just not healthy to have two large coffee drinks every week.

I realized that Friday is the trigger, and having a seasonal coffee drink gives me the relaxed feeling that the weekend is here. Now I just need to find a healthy alternative.

If you’re trying to form a habit or try to break the bad ones, I hope this post will be helpful for you. You’ll find good guidance from The Power of Now.

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Posted, by admin in Book Recommendations, Personal Development Tags: habit, personal development

6 Ways to Build Confidence

10/13/2012

Confidence is a key ingredient to success. Many people seek the answer to how to build self-confidence. There is no short cut. You can’t gain confidence by simply reading a self-help book or watching an inspirational movie. There are many ways to build confidence but the key is to internalize it and take action.

1. Confidence is built upon small achievements.

I speak the first point from my own experience. As you accumulate more achievements and success, you’ll have stronger belief in your own capabilities. It doesn’t matter how small the achievement is. It adds value in building confidence.

Years ago before I started working, I didn’t have much experience in using the computer except for using Windows and surfing the Internet. I learned how to use Excel as I was using it in business school. Then one year into my new job after business school, I started building financial models using macro and VBA code. It wasn’t easy for me, and I had no choice but to finish the assignments. After I completed them, I had the belief and the feeling that things could be difficult but it wasn’t impossible to accomplish them. Even though I had no experience in building blogs or websites, when I decided I wanted to build one, I knew as long as I learned the skills and tools by doing research, I could make it happen. The past experience and each achievement have built confidence in me that I have the ability to accomplish new challenging tasks.

Achievements are the building blocks for confidence and success. No matter what the challenge is, give it at least 100%. Make it a success. Most of the time, the cause of failure is not lack of capabilities but not making enough effort.

2. Confront your improvement areas.

To be able to do this, we’ll have to let go of our ego and accept the fact that we’re not perfect. Of course, everybody admits they’re not perfect, but not everybody deep down really accepts it. Many times, people turn away from their weaknesses, the areas that they need to improve as if not acknowledging them would make them disappear. They may fear failure and defeat, but it is counter-productive in building confidence.

The areas that need improvement are stored in your subconscious. Even though you turn a blind eye to them, you know they exist. And that knowing hurts your self-esteem and confidence. Subconsciously, you feel that you’re incompetent in those areas. Only when you acknowledge and confront them can you start to take action to make improvements. As you do so, you’ll gain confidence in your ability knowing that as long as you put in the effort, you can make a difference and improvement.

To know what areas you need to improve especially when it comes to personal improvement, you need to have self-awareness. And that brings us to the next point.

3. Increase self-awareness.

To put it in plain language, self-awareness is really about knowing yourself, which entails your strengths, your weaknesses, how you react, how your mind works, how your emotions work, how your logic works, etc. Self-awareness also helps you identify what causes your lack of confidence and your areas of improvement. Without good knowledge about yourself, it’s hard to pinpoint those things.

Before I developed good self-awareness, that was when I barely knew what self-awareness meant, I didn’t understand my lack of confidence was caused by lack of experience in certain fields. I also didn’t realize the areas I needed personal improvement in, such as procrastination, my tendency of getting emotional at work when frustrated, my withdrawing when things don’t go well, etc. Once your self-awareness increases, you’ll be able to identify the areas that need improvement. That will set a target for you to take action. As you make improvement and progress, you’ll gain more confidence.

4. Stop comparing yourself with others.

We all tend to have a comparing mind. Is he smarter than me? Is she prettier than me? Is his car better than mine? Is his job better than mine? When comparing your strengths with others’ weakness, you get arrogant; when comparing your weakness with others’ strength, you lose your confidence.

We have the tendency of paying more attention to what others have that we don’t. This biased view makes us feel inadequate. But people also tend to show their good side and hide the not-so-good side. You not seeing doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. So why bother comparing the good things of others with our own shortcomings? Moreover, everybody has his/her own strengths and weakness. Nobody is perfect. There is no point in comparing anybody with anybody else.

So stop the comparing mind. Do what you’re passionate about. Give it at least 100%. Achieve each goal that you have, be it big or small. The only person you should compare with is yourself. Compare the new you with the old you and see how much growth you have achieved. That’s how you build confidence.

5. See the greatness in yourself.

Everybody has it. You may not see it right at this moment. You may have to go through some good or bad things to realize it. But you HAVE it in you. Look deep inside you. Be objective. You’ll see the good things about yourself. If you’re critical about yourself and a glass-half-empty type of person like me, you may really need to step back and look at yourself as if you’re looking at someone else.

A great way to do this is to imagine you’re your friend or your family evaluating you. Put you in their shoes. What good things would your family or your friend say about you? That way, you step out of your own subconscious and can be more objective.

When you find yourself focusing on the shortcomings and feeling inadequate, ask yourself if you’re being objective about yourself. When you start to bring your strengths into your awareness, you’ll feel good and confident about yourself.

6. Learn from others’ experience.

When you want to accomplish a challenging goal and don’t have much experience in that particular area, a good way that helps is to learn from others who have the similar background as you and have achieved a similar goal.

When I applied for business school, I didn’t quite believe in myself because of lack of business experience. I kept a book by my side, written by a Stanford MBA who also didn’t have prior business experience. The book showed me that it was not impossible to get an MBA even without any experience in business before applying for business school. The possibility shown in the book gave me confidence. That belief and knowing you can do it is the driving force for success.

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Posted, by admin in Personal Development Tags: confidence, success

How to Stop Putting Things Off – Stop Procrastination

10/12/2012

Are You a Procrastinator?

The photo “funny-pictures-procrastination-cat” by Jeff McNeil is made available under Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0) license.’

Stop Procrastination

Do you ever feel being lazy and putting things off until the last minute? Do you ever feel drowsy and sluggish when thinking about getting started on an overwhelming project? Do you ever feel lack of energy and enthusiasm when the thought of starting a new task occurs on your mind? If so, my friend, you’re suffering from procrastination. I was in the same boat. I’m not saying I’m a total non-procrastinator now, but I’ve made improvement and progress to change my habit. Have you ever tried to “shake it off” but could never manage to do so? Stopping procrastination is definitely possible. Based on my learning and my experience, I will have a few suggestions that have helped me you can easily implement in your everyday life.

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What is Procrastination?

procrastination by Artistick Nik, on Flickr, made available under Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-ND 2.0) license

Every day we have a to-do list. The items on the list may be to prepare for a presentation at work, take the car to the shop for oil change, pay bills, do laundry, etc. Procrastination is choosing leisure over work, putting off doing things especially difficult ones, and choosing to do easy work even if it’s low-priority over more important work. When you let the bills pile up on the table as each day passes, you’re procrastinating; when you sit on the couch and watch TV all night while in the sink are the dirty dishes from a week ago, you’re procrastinating; when you prioritize updating your Facebook over preparing for a job interview that takes place the next day, you’re procrastinating.

Not only is procrastination counter-productive, it also creates stress and guilt. When you don’t finish the work you’re supposed to, it adds mental and emotional burden. You feel guilty for spending the time on having fun while you could’ve spent the time working on urgent projects. The more you put off, the less motivated you feel to take action to stop procrastination. It becomes a vicious cycle, and procrastination snowballs.

What Causes Procrastination?

Procrastination has been linked to perfectionism from the psychology point of view; however, this view doesn’t help me find the root cause and subsequently find the ways to overcome it. I prefer to look at the causes from a more practical perspective, which can point me to the right direction to solve the problem and break the bad habit. Here are the three main causes for procrastination.

1. Unclarity of how to finish a task makes you want to put it off. When faced with a task, especially a challenging one, you’re bound to procrastinate if you don’t know how to approach it. I speak this from my own experience. I was writing my first article on Squidoo. Before starting to write the article, I knew I wanted to write about procrastination and give advice on how to overcome it; however, it is such a broad subject. I didn’t know where to start or how to approach the topic. I only had an idea of what I wanted to accomplish but didn’t know how to execute it. Not having a clear plan on how to outline the article and what components to include, I kept putting off starting to write the article.

2. Lack of the necessary skills and knowledge leads to delay and procrastination. I wanted to create a blog to write about positive thinking and happiness and share my experience and learning to bring more positivity in people’s life. And I also decided to create my blog from scratch including registering a domain name, signing up for a web host, and designing my own blog. Initially, I was very excited about the idea, but as the reality settled in and I realized that I didn’t have the skill set and knowledge to create a blog, I put the project on hold. I could’ve simply started by getting a domain name and a web host first, but I didn’t know how to proceed from there, so I procrastinated on starting the blog project until I did intensive online research on web-building and gained enough knowledge about WordPress.

3. Feeling intimidated and inadequate toward the task can cause procrastination. This is the role psychology plays. If you know you can conquer the task and you feel destined to succeed, you can’t wait to roll up your sleeves and start working; in contrast, if you’re unsure about your competence and feel defeated even before you start, you’re likely to delay and procrastinate so the failure will not become reality. Why should I start on a project that is bound to fail?

Benefits of Overcoming Procrastination

There are multiple benefits of overcoming procrastination. When you stop procrastinating, you start to get work done! You become more productive and efficient. It’s one of the building blocks for success. If you want to accomplish something, procrastination is not going to get you there. Whether to publish my first Squidoo lens or to create my blog, the very first step I took was to stop procrastinating.

Besides increasing productivity and efficiency, there are many health and psychological benefits of overcoming procrastination. Accumulating to-dos on the list without checking any of them off generates stress. When you stop putting off doing things and simply start doing them immediately, the action itself along with the result of getting things done alleviates stress. Stopping procrastination and the feeling of accomplishment also make you feel more in control, which increases your self-confidence and self-esteem, in turn, contributing to more accomplishment and success. See how you can turn a vicious cycle into a victorious cycle by stopping procrastination?

How to Overcome Procrastination?

Now we know what procrastination is, and we’ve found out what causes it. After learning the benefits of stopping procrastination, we really want to know how we can overcome it. From what I have learned from my own experience, I’ve found that the following steps are easy to adopt and incorporate in everyday life that can really make a difference.

1. Set a goal and a deadline. Decide what you want to achieve and by when. Make sure the goal is challenging and realistic so you’ll remain motivated. Don’t settle for only making a mental note of the goal; be proactive and write down the goal. Make a reminder for yourself and place it where you can easily see every day. It’ll help you stay on track. The deadline will give you a sense of urgency and help you push forward.

List all the building blocks for achieving the goal. For example, for the article on Squidoo, I decided to include four components: the definition of procrastination, the causes, the benefits, and how to overcome it. These are my building blocks. Outlining them made it much easier for me to start writing. After you decide on the building blocks, make a step-by-step plan of what to finish each day. Initially I decided to finish one building block each day. That way, I’ll finish writing the article in four days. But after I started and finished the first one, on the second day, I simply couldn’t stop and finished all of the remaining three in one day. You’ll see how easy it’ll get once you have a concrete plan.

2. Make a plan for each day, each week, and each month. This step is suggested in the book Eat That Frog by Brian Tracy. I have formed a habit of at least having a plan for each day. I mostly implement it at work. At the end of a work day, I make a list of to-dos for the next day. The key is to not make overly aggressive plan, which creates stress or overly easily-achieved plan, which doesn’t motivate you. A daily, weekly, or monthly plan also keeps you on track and helps you hold yourself accountable.

3. Get all the prep work done beforehand – skill set, knowledge, etc. As mentioned above, lack of skill set and knowledge is one of the causes of procrastination, so one effective way to stop procrastinating is to acquire the skills and knowledge you need. To build a blog on my own, I needed to learn how to register a domain name, how to sign up a web host, how to use WordPress and FTP, and even how to write simple codes. These are just the basics, but having the basic knowledge under my belt, I was confident enough to start working on building my own blog.

4. Divide a large task into mini tasks. This is an important lesson I’ve learned. Large tasks are intimidating and overwhelming. They’re so intimidating that you don’t even want to get a start on them. There comes the P word. What I’ve found helpful is to divide it into small pieces that are easy to achieve. I followed this method when I divided the Squidoo article into four building blocks and planned on finishing one piece at a time. I also followed this method when I built my blog. I kept a steady pace. Since I was totally new to building websites, I started slow. I dedicated a few days to working on the theme and child theme, another few days on the plugins and bells and whistles, and one day on each page. I didn’t push myself to finish more than I could to create pressure. I took breaks in between tasks so that I didn’t overwork myself.

These are the steps that I’ve found helpful in overcoming procrastination. What do you find that works for YOU?

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Posted, by admin in Personal Development Tags: Stop Procrastination

The Power of Now – Be Present

10/05/2012

Flower by Bas Bloemsaat, on Flickr is made available under Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0) license.

The Power of Now has been on my “to-read” list for quite some time. I guess I was too busy reading about the past and the future to get to the present. With the help of the speed reading training, I finished the book within two days. Before I get to the next book The Power of Habit, I want to take the time to write a blog post about The Power of Now and share the great book.

My takeaway is the book should be read every day as a reminder of being present. The main reasons why I like it and highly recommend it are:

1. The Power of Now uncovers the problems caused by not focusing on the now and offers solutions.

There are many problems in life that we encounter on a regular basis: fear, anger, irritation, lack of determination, lack of discipline, lack of confidence… The cause of the problems lies in people identifying themselves with what’s on their mind. If you watch the thoughts that pop up in your mind, you’ll notice that they’re random but related to each other. For example, the chilly morning made me think of summer ending and fall arriving, which led to the thought of November, Thanksgiving, and Holidays, which led to the thought of the seasonal Starbucks coffee drinks especially Pumpkin Spice Latte. Next thing you know I started craving for a Pumpkin Spiced Latte.

Do you see the chain effect of the thoughts and how it starts randomly?

On average a person goes through 70,000 thoughts per day. That’s about 73 thoughts a minute if you take 8 hours of sleep out of the equation. The Power of Now shows us why we shouldn’t identify ourselves with these random thoughts. If I didn’t identify myself with my thought, I would’ve simply recognized it as what it was, a random thought that popped in my head and then let it go instead of mistaking it for my actual desire for the drink.

Besides craving, a lot of negative emotions are generated by random thoughts as well. The Power of Now suggests us not identifying ourselves with our thoughts. To be able to do so, we need to stay in the present. Being present is the solution.

2. The Power of Now focuses on the topic of being present intensively.

Unlike many other books I have read, which expand the topics, ending up with many sub-topics, every chapter of this book is focused on the same topic and digging deeper into the meaning. So after you finish this book, you’ll feel that you have an in-depth understanding of the topic. It’s especially important for people who are new to the concept of being present, what it is, and how to do it.

For example, if you can observe your mind instead of getting trapped in it, you’re being present; if you can realize your emotions are stirred up by the random thoughts in your mind and then disengage yourself from those thoughts, you’re being present; if you can overcome the fear in certain area that’s caused by what happened in the past and realize the present you have made improvement and have the capability to succeed in that area, you’re being present.

3. Being present can make a difference in your life.

I’m in the process of forming a habit of meditating every day. Since I read this book, being present has been the focus of my meditation. During my everyday meditation session, I practice quieting my mind and focusing it on the now. When I don’t meditate during the day, I’ve noticed that I’m more on the observer side than getting trapped in my mind.

Some random things I see or hear can make my mind start to go back in time and grab my memory and feeling of the past. If I’m not being present, I’ll let my emotions rise and get sad, resentful, regretful… But if I’m being present and more watchful of how my mind works and recognize that’s just my mind reacting on what I see or what I hear, I can disengage myself from my mind and not get entangled in the emotional reaction.

This is just my take of the book in a nut shell. The book does have a lot more to offer, a different perspective and a different approach to address everyday problems.

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Posted, by admin in Book Recommendations, Meditation, Personal Development Tags: be present, book recommendation, meditation, the power of now

12 Books that Have Made a Difference in My Life

10/04/2012

Book of Common Prayer by The Ewan, on Flickr is made available under Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0) license.

These 12 books have made a difference in my life. They have helped me be more positive, happier, efficient, and productive. My plan is to dedicate a blog post to each book, but that will take a while. So for now I will simply share the list of the books and will continue to add more detailed reviews. I’m sure the list will change as I read more books, and I will keep it updated.

What books have made a difference in your life? I would love to hear your ideas and book recommendations. Feel free to share them in the comment.

12 Books that Have Made a Difference in My Life

1. Your Best Life Begins Each Morning (the book I read every day)

2. Know Why You Believe (on Christianity)

3. Eat That Frog (on how to stop procrastination)

4. Eight Mindful Steps to Happiness (on happiness)

5. The Art of Happiness (on happiness)

6. The Four Desires (on purpose of life)

7. The Intuitive Way (on intuition)

8. The Road Less Traveled (on romantic love)

9. How to be a Star at Work (on career)

10. The Power of Intention (on positivity)

11. The Power of Now (on being present)

12. and of course, The Bible

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Posted, by admin in Book Recommendations, Happiness, Personal Development, Positive Thinking Tags: be present, book recommendation, Happiness, Positive Thinking, Stop Procrastination, success, the purpose of life

8 Things the Sooner You Realize, the Happier You’ll Be

10/03/2012

Fall foliage by C.E. Kent, on Flickr is made available under Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0) license.

Sooner or later you’ll learn these things. Then why don’t learn them sooner rather than later?

1. Impermanence is the only thing that’s permanent.

Don’t expect life to stay still. Permanence doesn’t exist. A lot of the emotional pain is caused by changes, or I should say, by the inability to cope with changes. Friends move away; job changes; couples break up; thriving economy shows down. The sooner you realize life is impermanent, the less likely you’ll expect things to remain the same and the less likely your mood will get affected by changes. Don’t get attached to the things that are bound to change.

2. Positivity is just a shift of perspective.

There is a positive side in everything. And it is your choice to see it. You can choose to see the dark side and be negative or you can choose to see the bright side and be positive. You can’t control what happens, but you can choose how you will respond to it. And life is the consequence of the choices you make.

3. The past and the future don’t matter as much as the present.

If you pay attention to your thoughts, you’ll notice that most of the time you either dwell on what happened or anticipate what will happen. The majority of the people spend little time on the present. For the past, you can’t do anything about what has already happened and can’t be changed; for the future, if you can’t act on the present, what’s the use of thinking about the future? I recommend the book The Power of Now, and it shows you how to be present.

4. Stop comparing yourself with others.

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People especially compare with others who they think are better than them. Then the comparison makes them feel inadequate. The comparing mind causes misery, and misery is purely self-created and unnecessarily. The comparing mind really doesn’t do any good. It makes people feel negative and frustrated with themselves and their lives. So stop comparing yourself with others and feel the relief and happiness.

5. Be yourself.

Don’t pretend to be someone you’re not just to try to please others or make them like you. Whether it’s a romantic relationship, friendship, or any other kinds of relationship, if you’re not true to yourself and being yourself, the relationship will not eventually work and you will not be happy in that relationship. Be yourself and be with the people who accept you for who you are. That’s the kind of relationship you would want to be in.

6. Do the right things and do things for the right reasons.

Regret and guilt weight you down and stop you from feeling happy. If you’re consistently being “right” (in the sense of right things and right reasons), you will have no regret and guilt. Your conscience will always be clear. Your energy will be positive. Personally, I believe it is a key to happiness to do the right things and to do things for the right reasons, and that’s why I dedicated two blog posts to this point.

7. Happiness comes from within.

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Everybody on earth has heard of this say, but I wonder how many people truly internalize it. I not only believe so; I know so. Life has showed me the truth in it. Don’t rely your happiness on external factors, be it your job, your money, your friends, your boyfriend/girlfriend, or your spouse. None of them can provide you with sustained happiness. Without the happiness from within, jobs and money can exhaust you and people can upset you.

8. Self-discipline needs practice.

Self-discipline plays an important role in achieving goals, short-term or long-term. Some people blame on lack of self-discipline when they give up on their goals. What they should know is every time they give up or procrastinate, it makes a dent in their self-discipline; every time they stick to their plan and carry through, they strengthen their discipline. Self-discipline is like a muscle that needs practice. It doesn’t come from your mind; it comes from your action. The more you practice it, the stronger it’ll be.

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Posted, by admin in Happiness, Personal Development, Positive Thinking Tags: be present, be yourself, Happiness, impermanence, Positive Thinking, self-discipline

What Is the Purpose of Life – The Four Desires: Creating a Life of Purpose, Happiness, Prosperity, and Freedom

09/30/2012

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What is the purpose of life? I wonder how many people can answer that question. Not knowing the purpose of life, I felt lost. “What’s the point of living?” I asked myself. By accident, I came across this book The Four Desires. After I read the book, my first impression was it was such an under-rated book. It deserves more exposure and popularity because it is so useful in helping people find the purpose of life. And the book has more to offer even beyond that.

When your action aligns with the purpose of life, you feel fulfilled and happy. In a nut shell, the book shows you 4 aspects in finding the purpose of life.

1. Uncover the purpose of life – go beyond the conscious mind.

This part is eye-opening to me in that the author suggests overcoming the conscious mind and intellect to find the purpose of life that you soul longs for. He shows a great method on how to do that. I usually skip exercises in books, but I’m glad I followed the author’s instructions to do the exercise. It was indeed valuable. I think that’s what distinguishes this book with others. Other books on purpose of life mostly describe what it is, but this book actually shows you how to find it.

2. Identify the short-term goal.

To achieve the purpose of life, you need to identify the short-term goal that aligns with it to help you work toward it. For example, if your purpose of life is to be an educator, depending on where you are at in your life, the short-term goal could be to prepare for GED get into college to earn a degree in education or to earn an advanced degree in education. Just like finding the purpose of life, the book also has exercise to help you identify the short-term goal that aligns with the purpose of life.

3. Strengthen your desire to get what you want.

If you can take it or leave it, chances are you won’t get it. You have to want it bad enough to have the strong desire to achieve your goal. The strong desire can then turn into the force to drive you into taking action to work toward achieving your goal. To strengthen your desire, you’ll need to bring your desire from the conscious level to the subconscious level in an effortless state of mind. The book shows you several meditations that help you achieve the effortlessness as well as the ways to strengthen your desire.

4. Overcome the resistance in achieving your goal.

This is another reason why I like the book. Unlike a lot of the books about positive thinking, it doesn’t hide the undesirable truth that you most definitely will run into difficulties and challenges along the way, like those bad habits, laziness, procrastination, lack of concentration, etc. How do you address them and overcome them? The book provides guidance for that as well.

For each aspect, the book not only shows what it is and why it is so but also provides real-life examples you can related to as well as practical exercises, meditations, and guidance. The book has helped me tremendously with uncovering my purpose of life. If you’re in search of your purpose of life, the book can be very valuable.

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Posted, by admin in Book Recommendations, Happiness, Personal Development Tags: the purpose of life

Meditation Journal I: Be Present

09/20/2012

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Meditation has many benefits. I’ve been meditating on and off for a few years. After stopping it for months, I’m resuming this good habit. As soon as I sat down quietly and started meditating, I realized what I had been missing the past few months.

Meditation quiets your mind.

That was my initial observation as soon as I sat down and closed my eyes. All the thoughts and stress were absent. There was just “nothingness” in my mind. I felt like I was listening to the silence. Even though I could hear the sound of the TV in another room and the noise from the street, I felt that I was at peace with the environment I was in. No resistance; no judgment.

Be present.

Immersing in the environment, I was more aware of my surroundings, the quiet noise from the outside, the TV, my breath, my heartbeat… I could feel the air flowing around me and me melting into the air. My surrounding and I became one being. It felt peaceful and tranquil. It reminded me of why I love to meditate.

The wandering mind sneaks in.

The beginning part of the meditation was my favorite. My concentration was at the highest level. I was being present. But the wandering mind sneaked in. By the time I caught myself deep in thought, I didn’t even know when my mind started wandering off the trail. That’s always the challenge of meditation for me, and I’m sure for a lot of other people too – losing concentration.

Meditation increases awareness.

Awareness gradually develops as you meditate more regularly. What I have realized was I became more aware of how I felt, what I was doing, and why I was doing it as I had meditated for an extended period of time. For example, I could catch myself losing concentration the moment my mind started to wander. It was definitely not possible to do when I just started meditation a few years ago. Now that I haven’t meditated for month, I have lost that level of awareness. It’s taking me longer to realize the loss of concentration. But I’m confident as I meditate more often, I will gain it back.

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Posted, by admin in Meditation Tags: awareness, be present, concentration, meditation, quiet your mind

Do Things for the Right Reasons

09/19/2012

Mountain Daisies by El Frito, on Flickr is made available under Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0) license.

Doing things for the right reasons is a contributor to happiness. I’ve learned the lesson from doing things for the wrong reasons, and I hope to bring the realization to others without their having to learn it the hard way.

Why do things for the right reasons?

1. It helps you make the right decision.

It’s fairly intuitive. Right reasons lead to right decisions; wrong reasons lead to wrong decisions. Think about the big decisions in life – marriage, career, etc. If you choose your life partner for the wrong reasons, your marriage may be doomed, which subsequently leads to unhappiness in life. If you choose your career purely for the pay and ignore your interest and passion, you’ll soon find yourself dreading to go to work every day. It’s a good idea to use the right reasons to guide decision-making.

2. It prevents regret and guilt.

How many “coulda woulda shoulda”s have you experienced? It happens all the time. From the simplest thing like “I should’ve got up earlier.” when you’re late for school or work to “I should’ve gone to college.” when you see a job application that requires a college degree. If I think hard, I can think of my “coulda woulda shoulda” moments every day when I regret doing or not doing something. Doing things for the right reasons doesn’t completely prevent regret and guilt but it helps to a significant degree. When you know you once made the decision for the right reasons and have done the best you can within your control, it really doesn’t leave much room for regret.

3. It increases the chance of success.

When you make a choice or a decision for the right reasons, for example, following your dream and passion, there’s a better chance of success; otherwise, the failure rate increases.

When I look back and think of my college years, I always regret my decision on the major I chose. I took a lot of intense and challenging math classes in high school. By the time I graduated from high school, I felt I’d had enough of math. All I wanted was to take a long break from it. Even though I was good at it, I was so tired of it that I avoided all the majors that had anything to do with math such as Finance, Economics, etc. And that was the reason why I chose English. The reason I chose English as my major was to avoid math. Wrong reason! I couldn’t make a career out of being an English major simply because I wasn’t truly passionate about it.

What are the right reasons?

1. The right reasons fit in the big picture.

You have to look far into the future and see if the reason fits the big picture. Like when I chose my college major, I was only thinking temporarily that I wanted to take a break from math. If I looked further, I would’ve been thinking if I was really into literature, linguistics, etc. that I would be studying for four years. If I had thought about whether I would want to make a living in that field, I would’ve made a more rational decision about which major to choose.

2. The right reasons align with the nature of the event.

By that, I mean you need to evaluate the right criteria. For example, a job provides a means of a living and career development opportunity. They’re the nature of a job. In the majority of the cases, the basic reasons for choosing a job should probably be: a) is it a good career opportunity? b) Is the pay reasonable? Choosing a job solely for the flexible hours or dress code is not the right reason.

3. The right reasons contribute to the well-beings of yourself and others.

If your choice or decision sabotages the well-beings of yourself and others, don’t do it. It’s actually pretty simple. Just do the right things so you won’t find yourself regretting or feeling guilty some day.

How to do things for the right reasons?

There are a few simple questions I usually ask myself when deciding if I’m basing my decisions on the right reasons.

1. Are the reasons right especially in the long run?

We tend to look short term and make decisions based on the immediate impact. Realizing that, I try to evaluate and see if the reasons are right in both short run and long run. If I see they’ll cause problems down the road, I know I’ll need to let go of those decisions and choices. Would you do things that have temporary benefit but sabotage long-term benefit? Do you look at the big picture when you make decisions?

2. Are the reasons based on happiness or pleasure?

Pleasure is temporary; happiness is a state of life and mind. Pleasure doesn’t equal happiness, nor does it necessarily lead to happiness. For example, when you eat tasty food, it’s a pleasure to your taste buds. Personally, I like sweets, candies, chocolate, ice cream, cheesecake, you name it. But I also have high cholesterol level and am not supposed to eat lots of sweets. When I eat ice cream or candy, it creates a pleasant sensation to my taste buds, and it’s a pleasure. But it’s not good for my health. It increases my cholesterol level. If I don’t watch my diet and overeat sweets, it can cause health issue. Would I be happy about that? Between pleasure and happiness, I need to make a choice. Do you do things for pleasure or for happiness?

3. Are the reasons beneficial for yourself and others?

Do you make donations because they’ll help others or do you do it because it boosts your ego? Do you do nice things for people because you genuinely want to make them happy or do you do it because you want them to return the favor some day? We do things for different reasons, and we may not always do things for the right reasons, but we should at least try our best to choose the right reasons. I’ve noticed that when I don’t do things for the right reasons, I tend to give up more easily when things get tough.

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Posted, by admin in Happiness Tags: Happiness

Be Receptive – A Key Ingredient in the Recipe for Happiness

09/14/2012

Lily by Matthew Fang, on Flickr is made available under Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0) license

There are many causes for unhappiness, and most of the time, all it takes to turn unhappiness to happiness is just a change of attitude. Not being receptive and resisting ourselves, others, and what’s going on in our life are a major source of unhappiness, especially when what we don’t accept is out of our control.

I wasn’t a happy teenager. I simply couldn’t accept myself, particularly how I looked. I wasn’t tall enough. I wasn’t pretty enough. My eyes weren’t big enough. I spent most of my teenage years dwelling on the not-so-pretty “uncontrollables” and wishing I could change them. The fact that I couldn’t do anything about them and there was no way to change any of them made me feel even more miserable. If it was a weight problem, I could take the matter in my own hands. I could do things to change it. I could eat less and exercise more to lose weight. But how was I going to change my height after I had already stopped growing?

The teenage me is just one of the examples of how unnecessarily resistance of reality creates misery. Looking back, I have to shake my head at myself. My teenage “misery” was all self-created in my head. If I could’ve just changed my attitude and accepted myself, I would’ve been able to make peace with myself and be free of the “misery”. All I needed to do was simply to acknowledge the fact that those things I didn’t like were out of my control and couldn’t be changed. Also, not being the prettiest girl wasn’t the end of the world. Things could’ve been worse. I had so many other great things going on in my life I could’ve appreciated more; instead, I focused more on what I didn’t have and took for granted what I did have.

However, even if someone had told me that, I don’t think I would’ve been able to easily change my attitude and be receptive. What made a difference in me and helped me realize being receptive is a key to happiness is meditation. It has a lot to do with the meditation process where you train yourself to let everything be, let your emotions rise, let your thoughts flow. Don’t resist them. Acknowledge them, and then simply let them go. Don’t get attached to them. Don’t dwell on them. Just let them go. I have become much more receptive than I was before. I acknowledge my limitation. I can’t do anything about it. But what I can do is to shift my perspective and polish my attitude to look at the bright side. I’ve learned to make peace with myself.

Have a receptive attitude also helps you make peace with others, which is also a key to happiness. For example, when you have unrealistic expectations in your spouse, you simply don’t accept the person for he/she is. You don’t accept the imperfections. Instead, acknowledge the fact that nobody is perfect and allow your spouse to be imperfect. What causes the disappointment in your spouse is not his/her shortcomings, but your resistance toward them. Once you change your attitude and accept them for who they are, you’ll feel much happier. Do you get upset with people at work? When you do, realize that they’re just like you. They make mistakes; they make requests; they have emotions; they sometimes lose their temper. Accept the limitation of being a human being.

Being receptive also means to accept what happens in life. Changes happen, and we tend to resist them if they’re unfavorable. The people you care about moved away; you left your family and friends to take on a new job; your family member passed away; you’re getting older as each day goes by. The list goes on and on and on… What can you do about them? Can you stop the changes? Can you stop people from moving and changing jobs? Can you stop the natural cycle of life? Can you stop the aging process? No. You can’t do anything about the changes themselves. But to better cope with changes and the less fortunate or less pleasant things that happen in life, we need to understand they are part of life. Life is not always rosy. Once in a while, you get a curveball. Resisting it will not change anything or make the unpleasant things go away. Sometimes, it’s not what happened that makes us unhappy, it’s the resistance toward it that puts us in a battle field to fight against our own ego.

Let go of control, let go of your ego, let go of unrealistic expectations in life. Things are not always going to happen the way you have planned; actually, they rarely do. When they don’t, be receptive. It’s the resistance that creates the unhappiness. While you often can’t control the way things happen, you CAN ALWAYS control your own attitude. Let go of resistance; be receptive.

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Posted, by admin in Happiness Tags: Happiness, Positive Thinking

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