1. Set Goals
The purpose of life is to live a life of purpose. People have an innate need to do something meaningful with their life; to accomplish, to achieve, to create, to live full lives. Setting goals concentrate our energies and add structure to our days. Action plans, targets, accountability checkpoints, deadlines: all these turbo charge our progress. To give anything less than our best is to waste our gifts.
2. Journal Faithfully
Self-awareness is key to EQ (Emotional Intelligence) and EQ (the ability to understand and manage our emotions AND the emotions of others) is key to success in life. Journaling gives us perspective on ourselves and on life and allows us to see patterns that might otherwise escape us. Journaling also helps us track our progress to our goals. Journaling can be a very centering, peace creating ritual.
3. Exercise Regularly
The healthier your body, the healthier your mind. Exercise is a mood booster and a powerful antidote to depression. Exercise is a terrific way to work off stress, a wonderful way to change your state.
4. Connect to a Spiritual Source or Well of Inspiration
There is more to life than this material world and it is vital to have a regular spiritual source or well of inspiration from which to draw strength. Mental muscles are like physical muscles: you can walk out of the gym perfectly buffed but if you do not return regularly, entropy and deterioration wreak their havoc. Someone once complained to motivational speaker Zig Ziglar that the impact of his speeches faded over time. Zig pointed out that just as one bathed regularly so one must return to some well source of inspiration on an ongoing basis. I tend to journal in the early pre-dawn hours of the morning in my study surrounded by books that have inspired and guided me through life. I usually pick a favorite and open it and begin reading at random, stopping when I find a passage that moves me and make that my theme of the day.
5. Live in the Present Moment
While it is important to learn from the past and it is wise to plan for the future, the point of power is always in the present moment. After all, that is all we have: this precious present moment, eternally flowing by, here but a moment, then gone forever. “May I Greet This Present Moment Fully; May I Welcome it as a Friend.”
Closing Quotes:
“Sometimes we don’t find the thing that will make us happy because we can’t give up the thing that was supposed to.” – Robert Brault
“Before we set our hearts too much on anything, let us examine how happy are those who already possess it.” – François VI de la Rochefoucault, 1613–1680
“Happiness is an inside job. “ – William Arthur Ward, 1921 – 1994
As always, I share what I most want/need to learn. – Nathan S. Collier
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