As a child my family’s menu consisted of two choices: take it or leave it.
Buddy Hackett
Here’s the golden ticket from my perspective:
Life comes down to a series of choices, some seemingly insignificant, but do we really ever know which ones?
Take what comes, or toss it to the side. Which choice helps you become a better you?
At the end of the day, this is how you decide.
The good, the bad, and everything in between.
Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.
Viktor E. Frankl
It was Senior year of high school, if I recall correctly. My memory isn’t what it used to be, but then, no one’s really is. Memory is like a file cabinet with a false bottom. But that’s a discussion for another post.
Back to high school circa 1987-88. The subject? Psychotheology.
Psycho what, now?
I had no idea, but it was an honors-level religion class and sounded a lot more interesting than any of my other options.
There are only three things I remember about the class.
Robert Frost wrote several amazing poems, but in sixth grade I was forced to memorize a stanza.
I shall be telling this with a sigh, somewhere ages and ages hence, two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.
Not too shabby X number of years later, huh? (No, I didn’t look it up. Sr. Theresa was serious about her poetry lessons.)
Back to Viktor Frankl…
I still have the book. It wasn’t logotherapy that caught my attention; I had no clue what he was talking about back then.
What captured my mind and heart were the words he used to describe his experience and the experience of those around him.
There was hope amidst tremendous tragedy.
Throughout the years, his book has come up in various conversations while I’ve pursued my master’s. And each time I tell myself, “You should read it, again.”
But I don’t.
I don’t think I ever will.
For me the lesson was about hope, resilience, compassion, and understanding who really has the power in a seemingly hopeless situation.
You have more power than you think you do.
Own it.
Revel in it.
Do something positive with it.
Humor can help us in many situations. Norman Cousins, famous for using belly laughter to cure his illness in 1964, believed this. He’d watch episodes of Candid Camera and other comedic performances.
In his book, Anatomy of an illness as perceived by the patient (1979), he outlined his self-imposed prescription for what doctors said he had a 1 in 500 chance of beating. Laughter was a key ingredient.
True, Cousins viewed himself as the eternal optimist, and that also probably had a hand in his recovery.
But humor still was essential.
Take a look at Andrew Tarvin’s research into how humor can help all of us. Oh, and I dare you not to laugh.
If you always put
Bruce Leelimit on everything you do, physical or anything else. It will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them.
When do you feel strongest mentally? Is it while you’re watching TV?
Probably not.
Most of us feel strongest when we’re being challenged. When our skills are being tested and the goal is just outside our reach, but we believe it’s attainable, we feel strong.
Every step we take moves us closer to conquering the test. Our confidence grows. Our understanding of whatever we’re trying to tackle increases.
We stumble, but we see a breakthrough on the horizon, and it’s not too far. We keep going. This is flow.
It’s timeless.
Will there be plateaus as Bruce Lee said? Yep.
But if you want to experience a greater sense of well-being and happiness, you’ll find ways to reach, and stay in, flow.
Happiness is fleeting. Many researchers believe we have a set-point for happiness that, of course, varies person-to-person.
If that’s true — if all we can hope for are momentary moments of happiness, then why bother being concerned with it?
Because happiness feels good. It’s also primarily a brain function.
We experience surges of happy chemicals like dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and endorphins when we do particular activities.
For example, how do you feel after a good workout? Those are endorphins kicking in.
When you cuddle with someone you love, how do you feel? Thank oxytocin for that. It’s sometimes even called the cuddle hormone.
When you accomplish a goal you get a rush of dopamine as a reward. You might even get a hit of serotonin, depending on the goal you accomplished. If it involved exercises like running, biking, or yoga, then BONUS! Oh, and massage, that increases serotonin, too!
The point is, who cares if we have a set-point for happiness when you know there are activities you can do to increase those happy brain chemical experiences?
Get your happy dance on!
If you think
Brene Browndealing with issues like worthiness and authenticity and vulnerability are not worthwhile because there are more pressing issues, like the bottom line or attendance or standardized test scores, you aresadly , sadly mistaken. It underpins everything.
What does it mean to be authentic?
Most of us would agree that it means being true to ourselves. True to our values and beliefs.
Which self are we talking about?
Is it the self that we present to our family, friends, colleagues, clients, boss, the people in our church, temple, or other place of worship?
Who is this “self” who is authentic?
When we experience a disconnect between those worlds, our happiness and sense of well-being decreases. We feel off balance.
Until we bring the divide closer, or better still, eliminate it, we’ll continue feeling like a boat pushed by waves without an anchor.
Values are anchors embedded deep in our consciousness. They guide our thoughts and actions.
If we allow them to.
Being authentic means walking your walk. Talking your talk. And doing all of it with conviction.
Can it be scary sometimes?
You bet.
Do we need to do it?
Without a doubt.
“My philosophy is that not only are you responsible for your life, but doing the best at this moment puts you in the best place for the next moment.”
~ Oprah Winfrey
Life isn’t about what others have done to us, and not even what they’ve done for us.
Life is about how we respond to or handle what we perceive others have done to us or for us.
Radical ownership is taking full responsibility for our thoughts, words, and resulting action or inaction.
It’s understanding our values and allowing those values to guide all that we think, say, do, or don’t do.
Is it always easy? Nope.
Will there be times when you want to blame someone for where you are or what’s happening in your life? Yep.
Living your values 100% of the time is a growth process. Sure there are some people who it appears have done this since birth, but that’s rare.
Most of us have to develop over time, learn as we go, fall down, and then pull ourselves back up. If we’re fortunate, though, we’ve surrounded ourselves with people moving in the same direction.
If we’re very fortunate, we have guides who are already living their values.
This is how you can jump-start the process:
How will you take radical ownership of your day today?
“Nothing is so contagious as an example. We never do great good or great evil without bringing about more of the same on the part of others.”
~ La Rochefoucauld
You’ve had a crappy day. You come home and
Too cliche?
Maybe, but it’s true.
We need to own our feelings. Emotions are a necessary part of life. They aren’t right or wrong, they just are.
What we can’t do is allow our negative emotions to infect others like cancer. It’s okay to be angry. It’s not okay to express that anger in a way that hurts someone else. It’s awesome to feel joy. Feel free to express that to others — unless joy isn’t where they are in that moment.
Emotions are tricky. Navigating when and where to express them so that others benefit rather than get hurt by them is even trickier.
“The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up.”
~ Paul Valery
I’ve spent a few days writing about goals (not resolutions that usually get broken by February.) But our goals really start out as dreams, right?
If you’re someone who hasn’t spent much time goal-setting, or you’re someone who tries tackling too many goals and only accomplishing a few or none, then I’d like you to take a few steps back.
It’s time to dream and the start of a new year is the perfect time for it!v
Grab a notebook or blank piece of paper. We’re going to borrow Warren Buffet’s 5/25 idea, but not in its entirety. Write down 25 goals. Don’t categorize them, just write. Review your list and circle 5 that you want to focus on this year.
Now choose 1.
For that one goal, get another piece of paper, but one without lines. Draw the outcome of reaching that particular goal.
For example, if you’re a writer who wants to publish a book, you might draw yourself being interviewed by someone you admire.
Remember the details. What’s the name of your book? Is the interviewer holding it for all to see? Where are you being interviewed? When did the interview happen? Use color to make your dream come alive on the
This final step is really a matter of preference. Some people like keeping their drawing somewhere they can always see it. Others tuck it away.
What’s important is doing the exercise because now the outcome is planted in your brain. It’s a seed waiting to be watered. How do you water it?
Every time you do something related to that dream, your seed becomes stronger.
Let’s look at the writer, again. Maybe you’ll take a writing class. Maybe you’ll join a critique group or attend a conference where you learn how to pitch your idea. Those actions are fertilizer and water for your seed.
All of the actions you choose to take can only be done when you wake up.
“There’s a myth that time is money. In fact, time is more precious than money. It’s a nonrenewable resource. Once you’ve spent it, and if you’ve spent it badly, it’s gone forever.”
~ Neil A. Fiore
Schedule the critically important events. What does this mean?
Simple. Schedule those things that relate to your audacious goals. If your family isn’t included, then make sure you add time for them. If you don’t have a family, but you do have friends
Why? Because we need to pursue those activities that fill our soul, and we also need positive, healthy relationships while we do it.
No one lives or succeeds in a vacuum. That would be lonely.