Tremors of Psychitude: One Little Trick to Find Purpose and Motivation

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Today when I asked people what was bothering them, the two most common responses were related to:

  • Finding meaning and purpose
  • Finding motivation

As it turns out, those two things can be solved with one little step.

Here’s the step: help someone else.

This sounds exceedingly simple, but it’s the shift in focus that really makes a difference. Let’s say I was having trouble finding the motivation to write … to solve that, I might tweet something asking people what problems they’re having. Then I move from “how do I solve my problem (of not being motivated)” to “how can I help these people”?

I’m not bogged down by my own distractions or guilt or laziness anymore … I’m focused on doing something good for someone else. Now I’m excited! The words just pour out of me. This is a hypothetical scenario, of course.

Finding Meaning and Purpose

If you feel stuck in your life, or confused, because you don’t have a clear direction and have no way of finding that direction … shift your focus from yourself.

Instead of thinking, “What should I be doing?” or “What could I do to give my life purpose?” … try asking:

  • What could I do to help people in need?
  • What pain are other people feeling that I could help with?
  • Who do I care most about, and what problems do they have?
  • Who are my current customers, and what can I do to help them more?
  • What problems are out there that strangers might have, that my particular skillset could solve?

When you start asking these kinds of questions, your focus shifts from your confusion and problems, to the confusion and problems of others. And when you start solving them, you have purpose. It’s gratifying to help others. It fills you with a sense of meaning and appreciation.

It sounds too easy, but it works 100% of the time. I will give you your money back if it doesn’t.

Getting Pumped with Psychitude

We might move through the day as if in a fog of blueness, slogging through mud, in a slump, feeling no motivation to do anything useful. This is a problem I imagine people of yore didn’t deal with as much. I’m not sure what in our modern condition causes this lack of motivation, but when I figure it out, I will write a poem about it for you.

But the cure is simple and pure and lovely: help others.

Can’t get off your butt to do something useful to your career and life in general? OK. So forget about your life, your career, your little set of problems. That’s a self-focus that doesn’t do anything for you.

Instead, move your focus to others. What pain are other people feeling? Can you help in some small way? Can you ease their suffering just a little? Can you put a smile on someone’s face? Can you change someone’s life?

When you change someone’s life for the better, even just a little, you feel amazing.

This shift in focus … it rocks your world. It sends tremors of psychitude throughout your body and mindbrain. It’s quite nice.

A Few Other Steps

OK, I know I said just one step is needed, but a few other little things to consider:

  • Simplify your day. Do less. Pick just one thing to focus on.
  • Clear distractions. Shut off the Internet. Turn off notifications.
  • Move in one small step. Don’t tackle the whole damn project. Just get started.
  • Get more sleep. Lack of sleep, too little water, too much stress, and too much caffeine are causing your headaches.

Good. Do those few steps, and shift your focus to others, and your mind and entire being will be rocked with psychitude like never before.

 

 

Flowing with the Stresses of Kids

Parenting can be stressful. That’s probably one of my bigger understatements, but as the father of 6 kids, I’ve learned a little about handling these stresses so that it’s not such a big deal anymore.

Kids throw tantrums, demand to have their way, don’t see anything but their own point of view, break things, always need something, get hurt, fight with each other, start to rebel and become disrespectful as teenagers, and so on.

But there are good bits too.

The truth is, dealing with the stresses of kids is the same as dealing with the stresses of anyone else. The stress is just magnified because 1) we are responsible for their lives, education, values and everything else, and 2) we are more emotionally involved with them than we are with most other people. Still, the basics of dealing with the stresses of others apply, and what we’ll talk about here can apply to anyone, not just someone with kids.

OK, let’s tackle this problem … we’re going to look at two areas: 1) how to deal with the stresses of others, and 2) how to make managing kids easier.

Stresses of Others

In her book Everyday Zen, Charlotte Joko Beck tells a story that I’ll paraphrase here:

Imagine you’re rowing a boat on a foggy lake, and out of the fog comes another boat that crashes into you! At first you’re angry at the fool who crashed into you — what was he thinking! You just painted the boat. But then you notice the boat is empty, and the anger leaves … you’ll have to repaint the boat, that’s all, and you just row around the empty boat. But if there were a person steering the boat, we’d be angry!

Here’s the thing: the boat is always empty. Whenever we interact with other people who might “do something to us” (be rude, ignore us, be too demanding, break our favorite coffee cup, etc.), we’re bumping into an empty boat. We just think there’s some fool in that boat who should have known better, but really it’s just a boat bumping into us, no harm intended by the boat.

That’s a hard lesson to learn, because we tend to imbue the actions of others with a story of their intentions, and how they should have acted instead. We think they’re out to get us, or they should base their lives around being considerate to us and not offending us. But really they’re just doing their thing, without bad intent, and the boat just happens to bump into us.

When we see things with this lens, they suddenly become emptied of anger and stress. Our boss was rude? Empty boat, just respond appropriately, don’t imbue with a story. Kid throws a tantrum? Empty boat, just breathe and find the appropriate, non-angry response.

This is detachment. It’s seeing the actions and words of others as just phenomena happening outside of us, like a leaf falling or the wind blowing. We don’t get angry at the wind for blowing, and yet the blowing does affect us. Let the actions of your kid be the wind blowing — you just need to find an appropriate response, rather than being stressed that this phenomenon is happening.

So when your kid is doing something other than what you’d like, let go of that desired outcome that’s stressing you out, and let go of the story you’ve imbued into their actions. Just think, “Empty boat, wind blowing.”

And then give them a hug. Let love guide your actions. Teach, don’t control. Set an example of how they should behave with your compassionate response. They’re watching you, not listening to your words, and that’s how they learn.

Making Things Easier

The skills above take practice, and I’m still learning them myself. I don’t claim to be the best at them, but the learning itself is a good process to go through.

With all of that said, there are some things you can do to make managing kids easier and less stressful:

  • Teach them to be self-sufficient. Each step along the way, teach them to take care of themselves according to their ability to learn new skills. If they learn to brush their teeth, shower, fix their breakfast, wash their dishes, and eventually cook and clean and wash their own clothes, life becomes much easier.
  • Set boundaries. There are certain lines they shouldn’t cross for safety reasons, and the earlier you can teach these lines, the better. Then there are softer lines that are inappropriate to cross — being disrespectful of others, damaging property, etc. — and for these lines, it’s good to teach them as early as possible why it’s bad to cross the lines. Repetition is key, and eventually they learn and things are easier for all concerned.
  • Give them responsibility. Older kids can watch younger kids. Kids can pitch in with family chores, like sweeping and washing dishes and wiping counters and cleaning bathrooms. This is good for them, as it teaches them to be a part of a team and take pride in their work, while it reduces the load for you.
  • Don’t schedule too much. Many parents overbook their kids, with practices and lessons and clubs and playdates and sports and recitals and much more. This gives the kids no time to play and invent on their own, and makes life much more stressful for the parent. Schedule as little as possible, and let them figure out how to use their time.
  • Relax your expectations. Parents tend to expect the world of their kids, from how successful they’ll be to how perfect they’ll be at skills to how little they’ll mess up with things around the house to how perfect they’ll behave. Of course, none of these expectations is realistic, nor fair to the kid. Let them go. Accept them for who they are, and just have a good time with them.

I say all these things like I’ve perfected them, but of course I haven’t. I have a wonderful set of kids, and I know I’m lucky. I’m also lucky to have an amazing wife, Eva, who bears the brunt of the stress and makes things so much easier for me. But when the things above work, they work great.

Parenting can be stressful, but it can also be joyful. I choose joyful.

 

9 Rules for a Simpler Day

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Our days fill up so fast, and are so rushed and filled with distractions, that they seem to be bursting.

It’s a huge source of stress for most people, and stress is perhaps the most important factor determining whether we’re healthy or sick.

So how can we simplify our days? It’s not incredibly hard, but I’ve found it’s best done in steps.

These are the steps I followed, though of course calling them “rules” means we should test them and break them as needed. No rules should be followed blindly. I’ve found these to work really well, though.

9 Rules for a Simpler Day

These are the rules I suggest:

  1. Know What’s Important. The simple version of simplifying is “Identify what’s important, and eliminate the rest.” So take time to identify the most important things in your life (4-5 things), and then see what activities, tasks, projects, meeting and commitments fit in with that list. Also take time each day to identify 1-3 Most Important Tasks (MITs), at the beginning of your day. Or the night before, for the next day.
  2. Visualise Your Perfect Day. This is not so much because this “perfect day” will come true, as it is to understand what a simple day means to you. It’s different for each person — for me, it might mean some meditation and writing and spending time with my wife and kids. For others, it’s yoga and painting and a hot bath. For others, it’s time to focus on the important work, but still get other things done later in the day. Take a minute to visualise what it means to you.
  3. Say No to Extra Commitments. Now that you’ve identified what’s important, along with the “perfect day”, you need to start saying “No” to things that aren’t on your important list, and that are standing in the way of the perfect day. The biggest thing you can say No to is a commitment — membership on a committee, involvement in a project, coaching or participating in a team, going to an event, being a partner in a business, etc. List and evaluate your commitments (professional, civic and personal), and say No to at least one. It just takes a call or email.
  4. Limit Tasks. Each morning, list your 1-3 most important tasks. List other tasks you’d like to do. Say no to some of them. See if you can limit your list to 5-7 tasks per day (not counting little things, which you’ll batch). Limiting your tasks helps you focus, and acknowledges you’re not going to get everything done in one day.
  5. Carve Out Un-distraction Time. When are you going to do your most important work? Schedule it with a block of time (1 hour, 2 hours, 4 hours, whatever works for you). Make this your most sacred appointment. Become incommunicado. Close the Internet, all notifications, hold all calls. Just do the most important task, then the next one if you have time.
  6. Slow Down. We rush through our days, almost in a single frenetic anxiety-filled non-stop movement. Instead, slow down. Life won’t collapse if you aren’t rushing from task to task, email to email. You can pause, take a moment to reflect, smile, enjoy the current task before moving on.
  7. Mindfully Single-task. Stop multi-tasking. One task at a time, with full focus on that task. Practice mindfulness as you do the task — it’s a form of meditation. Watch your thoughts wander to what you need to do later, but then return to the task at hand. Your day will be much simpler, and much more enjoyable, when you practice being present with your current task.
  8. Batch Smaller Tasks, Then Let go. Email, paperwork, little things at the bottom of your task list (create a “small tasks” section at the bottom), minor phone calls, etc. … these shouldn’t get in the way of your important tasks. But they still need to be done sometime (unless you can let them go, which is best whenever possible). If you need to do them, batch them and do them in one go. It’s best to do these later in the day, when your energy is lower and you’ve done the important tasks for the day. Don’t let the small tasks get in the way of the big ones. When you’ve done a batch of small tasks (including processing email), let them go, and get out. You don’t want to do this all day, or even half a day.
  9. Create Space Between. We cram our tasks and meetings together, and leave no spaces between them. The space between things is just as important as the things themselves. Leave a little space between meetings, even tasks. Take a break to stretch, walk around, get a glass of water, perhaps do some simple breathing meditation for a minute or two. Enjoy the space.

 

 

The Habits of Happiness

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‘Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.’ ~Dalai Lama

I’m not one who believes you can be happy all the time, but I have learned you can be happy much of the time.

And that’s not something that depends on how your day is going or how others treat you — it depends on what you do on a regular basis.

I remember being unhappy most days, at one point in my life. It wasn’t because I hated the people in my life — I had a lovely wife, great kids, other wonderful family members and friends. It was because I was unhappy with myself, and that caused growing debt problems, unhappiness with my job, health problems and more. I felt like I couldn’t change any of that.

Then one day I sat down and made a list.

I make a lot of lists — it’s one of my favorite habits — but this list seemed to have a magical power. It was a list of the things I was grateful for. Amazingly, there were a lot of things on the list, from things about my wife, kids, relatives, and friends, to things about my job, about nature around me, about my life.

This list was magical because I went from feeling a bit depressed about everything, and hopeless and helpless, to much happier. My mindset shifted from the things I didn’t like or didn’t have, to the things I was really happy I had. And I was in control.

Since then I’ve experimented with a number of habits and have found a couple things to be true:

  1. A handful of activities can actually make you happy.
  2. If you incorporate them into your life on a regular basis (make them into habits), you’ll be happier regularly.

And those might seem to be small realizations, but actually they’re huge.

The Habits That Make You Happy

So what habits make you happy? Try doing these on a daily basis, and see if you get the same results:

  1. List 3 Good Things. Eva & I started a daily evening ritual, at about 7pm each day, where we take a moment to tell each other three good things about our day. We didn’t invent this, but it serves as at least one time in your day when you focus on what you’re grateful for. This can create a mental habit of gratitude that you can use other times in your day, when you’re focused on the things you don’t like or have — when you feel this, think about something you do have, that you love. Find a way to be grateful, and you’re happier.
  2. Help Someone. When we focus on ourselves, and the woeful state of our lives, we are self-centered. This shrinks the world to one little place with one little unhappy person. But what if we can expand that worldview, and expand our heart to include at least one other person? Maybe even a few others? Then we see that others are suffering too, even if that just means they’re stressed out. Then we can reach out, and do something to reduce their stress, put a smile on their face, make their lives easier. Help at least one person each day, and you’ll find your entire perspective shifted.
  3. Meditate. I’ve called this the Fundamental Habit, because it affects everything else. Meditate for just 2 minutes a day, and you’ll create a habit that will allow you to notice your thoughts throughout the rest of the day, that will help you to be more present (unhappiness comes from not being present), that will help you notice the source of anxiety and distraction. That’s a lot that can be accomplished in 2 minutes! Sit every morning when you wake, and just notice your body, and then your breath. Notice when your mind wanders, and gently return to your breath. You become the watcher of your mind, and you’ll learn some useful things, I promise.
  4. Exercise. Everyone knows you should exercise, so I’m not going to belabor this point. But it really does make you happier, both in the moment of exercise (I’m exerting myself, I’m alive!) and throughout the rest of the day. Exercise lightly, if you’re not in the habit yet, and just for a few minutes a day to start out. Who doesn’t have a few minutes a day? If you don’t, you need to loosen up your schedule a bit.

There are a number of other habits that also help: mindful eating, drinking tea, doing yoga, socializing with others. But these incorporate meditation (they’re more active forms of meditation), and exercise and helping others and gratitude (if you’re doing it right). So I wanted to list the most basic habits, and then you can expand to other areas.

How do you form these habits? One at a time, starting as small as possible, with some social accountability.

Set these habits in motion. You’ll notice yourself becoming more present, more grateful, more other-focused. The shift that results is nothing short of a miracle.

 

This article was supplied by Newsletter Ready.

Advice for Starting a Business

 

Recently I encouraged my daughter to start a cupcake business, and it’s so exciting to watch her get started.

As I talked to her about starting, she had some worries:

  • She didn’t know how.
  • She didn’t know what kind of business to create.
  • She was worried she’d fail.

Do any of those sound familiar? Those were my worries too, when I had a day job and thought about building something of my own.

Worry about not knowing what to do, how to do it, and whether you’ll fail … these stop so many people from starting.

Today, I’d like to share the lessons I’ve learned about starting a business, in hopes of encouraging you to get started making something you love.

  1. Look for opportunities. Keep your eyes open for opportunities — what pain points do people have, what problems need to be solved, how can you make people’s lives better?
  2. If you can’t wait to get started, you’re onto something. Every time I’ve gotten my best ideas, I get excited. I tell people about it. I might even stay up at night thinking about it. I can’t sit down for long from the excitement.
  3. Start small. People try to build their new business into a massive launch, but this is a mistake. Start as small as possible, giving a minimum viable product to a few friends, and let them test it out. Then a few more people. When you try to do something massive at launch, you make it less likely that you’ll actually start, and you’ll take forever to launch, and you’ll build yourself up for failure, and you’re building something massive without any idea of whether it works or if people like it. Launch is just one moment in the lifespan of a business, and it’s not even one of the most important moments.
  4. Not starting is the biggest mistake. I told Maia that the worst-case scenario — if the business fails — is not even bad. If she starts the vegan cupcake business and fails, at least she got to make and eat some delicious cupcakes, and share them with friends, and learn some valuable lessons along the way. She can always start something new after that. In fact, this scenario of learning something and having fun along the way, even in “failure”, is demonstrably better than if she’d not started at all.
  5. Start a blog. The best way to market a business is by giving away free information. Show that you’re valuable, help people for free, and they’ll want more from you.
  6. Don’t do SEO or social media market or viral marketing. Those don’t add any value for your customers.
  7. Instead, be super valuable. Build something great, and word of mouth is all the marketing you need (including people passing on your best blog posts). Overdeliver. They’ll love you, and you won’t need to do slimy SEO techniques.
  8. Start lean. I started my businesses with zero money, and just found free or cheap services to start with. Only after I started making some revenue did I pay for anything, or hire anyone. Make money as soon as possible by selling something valuable.
  9. Advertising is a bad business model. When you make money from ads, what are you selling? Your audience’s attention. This is horrible, and your audience/customers won’t love you for it. Instead, do everything possible to delight your audience/customers, and give them incredible value, and they’ll gladly pay for it.
  10. Forget about numbers. More specifically, forget about hitting certain targets. A million page views, ten thousand subscribers, half a million in revenues. Those are meaningless and arbitrary. Instead, worry about how much you’re helping your customers. How much value are you giving them? How can you make them smile? Try putting some numbers on those things.
  11. The joy doesn’t come later. Lots of times people kill themselves trying to reach a goal, or hit an amazing launch. They hope that achieving this goal will change their lives. Then they get there, and their lives aren’t different. They move on to the next goal. The joy doesn’t come when you hit the goal, or have an amazing launch. The joy comes right now. This is the moment of greatness, of satisfaction with yourself and what you’re doing. Not later.
  12. Forget perfection. Too many people get caught up in trying to make a product, website, blog post, launch, etc. perfect. It’ll never be perfect. Perfection is stopping you from shipping. Instead, do what you can, get it out there, get feedback, improve it, repeat.
  13. Screw the business plan. Planning, like perfection, is useless and stands in your way. Sure, you want to think things through, but planning is based on faulty information (we can’t know the future). Instead, experiment. Get started. Do. Then see what happens, and adjust. Flexibility is much more important than a good plan.
  14. Start from home, and start with friends. You don’t need to have an office for most businesses … even a cupcake business doesn’t need a shop — at least not at first. Start with no extra money, in your spare time if you have to. Let your first customers be your friends, and ask them to be brutally honest. Then let them spread the word to their friends. That’s a Zero-Dollar Launch.
  15. Focus on important things. Too often people get caught up in statistics, social media, lots of little tasks that don’t matter. Instead, get moving on what matters most — producing something that will add value to your customers.
  16. Surround yourself with interesting people. Having friends who are doing fascinating things is inspiring, and they will give you great advice and feedback. The people around you, and their positive and inspiring attitudes, matter.
  17. Learn to be OK with not knowing. You won’t know what will happen with the business. The world is changing. Your business will change. You will change. You don’t know anything, really, and that’s OK. Read more.

Get started, my friends! You’ll love it.

 

 

8 Creativity Lessons from a Pixar Animator

‘I want to put a ding in the universe.’ ~Steve Jobs

Sometimes immersing yourself in the creative world of people doing amazing things can bring unexpected results.

My son Justin is interested in 3D animation, and my daughter Chloe is into screenwriting, and so it was a thrill to take them on a tour of Pixar Animation Studios, courtesy of one of the Pixar animators.

Bernhard Haux is a “character technical director”, which in his case means he models characters and works on their internal motions (I think — I didn’t fully grasp the lingo). Which means he is just a small piece in the larger Pixar machine, but a piece that’s aware of what everyone else is doing too. He’s worked on major movies such as Up, Brave, Monsters U and others in the last 6 years.

Bernhard was gracious enough to show us around the Pixar campus, and while we couldn’t really dig into their super-secret process, we did get a few glimpses of the magic.

And as a result of these small glimpses, I learned some surprising things.

I’d like to share them here, in hopes that they’ll inspire others as they inspired me.

Creativity Lessons

Bernhard actually answered a whole bunch of our questions, and I was too polite to record it all, so here are a few things I remember:

  1. Tenacity matters. Bernhard told a story of a friend who did a drawing every day, for more than 3 years, and became amazingly good by the end of that stint. He shared Looney Toons legendary animator Chuck Jones’ assertion that you have to draw 100,000 bad drawings before you have a good drawing. Bernhard said you might not seem very good at something when you start out, but if you’re persistent, tenacious even, you can get amazingly good.
  2. Art is your particular telling of reality. When we talked about letting go of preconceived ideas and drawing what you actually see, Bernhard compared it to a night out with one of his friends. While Bernhard might just recount that night by saying, “We went out and had some food and went home”, his friend might have noticed a lot of interesting details that Bernhard didn’t, and tell a story with those details in a way that’s interesting and hilarious. Same experience, different interpretation, different details.
  3. Feed off others’ ideas. When Pixar artists create characters, it’s not a matter of one artist sketching out how he thinks a character should look. They all sit around a table, each drawing ideas, putting them in the middle, and others taking those ideas and riffing off them. Dozens and dozens of sketches come out from this process, until they find the one that works best. This means everyone’s creativity builds on the creativity of everyone else. This, btw, can help you even if you don’t have a bunch of other geniuses to work with — find others who are creating cool things, and riff off them, and share your riffs.
  4. Let go of ego. Imagine if you’ve put a great sketch into the pile, and you think it’s the one that should be used. But because so many talented artists are throwing ideas into the pile, the fact is that most ideas/sketches won’t be used. They’ll be discarded. If you want your idea to win, you’ll fight for it, but this only hurts the process. Pixar animators have to let go of their egos, and put the best interests of the project first. I think this is true of any creative project.
  5. Everyone should know the mission well. Some studios outsource their animation work overseas, but then the animators often don’t know what the movie is about, and don’t really care about the final process, because they’re just doing one tiny piece. But at Pixar, everyone involved is pushing forward, trying to create the best movie possible, and they take pride in this mission. That means that everyone is invested in the mission, everyone truly cares about the work they’re producing, and it shows in the final creation.
  6. Lots of hard work, tiny but amazing results. When Pixar created Brave, deleted scenes that didn’t make the final cut would have made the movie 5 times as long. A ton of little visual jokes didn’t make the movie. That means that hours and hours of creative, brilliant work were thrown out, and only the best of the best of all of this creative process actually was used. That’s a lot of amazing stuff, to get very little. That means what we actually see is of incredible quality.
  7. Surround yourself with heroes. When Bernhard was intervied at Pixar about 6 years ago, it took all day. The list of people interviewing him was a list of his personal heroes. That’s who he works with, the best in the world. How inspiring is that? You’d jump out of bed to get to work each morning, wouldn’t you? Of course, not all of us are that lucky, but we can surround ourselves with the work of our heroes, and use them for inspiration, maybe even reach out and meet one or two of them someday. Shoot for the stars, or at least illuminate your life with their light.
  8. Help those just starting out. Bernhard took the time out of his day to give us a tour, because a teen-age young man is interested in computer animation. That’s exceptional. His reasoning: ” I was where Justin is right now, and it’s nice to pass on what I know today. Passion and dreams are important to keep alive.” How many of us do that?

Bernhard, thank you. And thank you to everyone out there who is making something, inspiring others, letting go of ego, taking time to help those just starting out, and showing us that tenaciousness pays off. We all owe you, for what you put into this world.

 

 

The Way of No Debt

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In 2005, one of the low points of my life, I had 5 kids, crippling debts, and was barely making it from paycheck to paycheck.

I would shove my bills in a drawer, envelopes unopened, so I didn’t have to deal with bills I couldn’t pay. I would avoid the calls of collection agencies. I was swimming in debt, and didn’t know how to get out.

The real low point, though, came when we didn’t have enough money to buy some milk and cereal for the kids. My bank account had a negative balance. So I stole money from my kids’ piggy bank to buy the food. Yeah, that didn’t feel good.

Things went on like this for awhile before I finally decided it was time to face the fears, see my situation clearly, and start doing something about it.

Here’s what I did:

  1. I finally faced the problem: I took the bills out of the drawer, and make a spreadsheet with all my debts, the amounts, and the minimum monthly payments.
  2. I took a look at our spending, and realized we needed to stop the bleeding before we could start healing. We were spending more than we earned, or at best, all of what we earned.
  3. So we cut out all kinds of expenses: cable TV, one of our cars, magazine subscriptions, daily lattes, going to the movies with the kids, buying new things other than actual necessities, going to the mall for entertainment, eating out, buying convenience food. Many of these things we cut out gradually, a month at a time, but some we cut out right away.
  4. We started a spending plan — most bills were put on automatic payment, and a few discretionary categories (food, gas, etc.)
  5. I started an emergency fund.
  6. I started paying off the debts, one at a time.
  7. I renegotiated with some of our creditors.
  8. We found other fun ways to have fun as a family.
  9. I started earning more as a freelancer, to bring in extra income.
  10. I started this blog, and sold my first ebook 11 months later, to make more income.

Then we got out of debt. And stayed out. We haven’t been in debt one single minute since then. It’s wonderful.

The Way of No Debt

The first part of the Way of No Debt is getting out of it. The steps I took above are how I did that. It’s the hardest part, but definitely worth it.

The Way is then a transition from being in debt, to living debt-free.

First, we kept living frugally for awhile — we didn’t really loosen up, and that meant we put a lot of our income to savings. We grew our emergency fund to the recommended 6-month cushion, which was important to me as a self-employed business owner.

Then I started looking to invest, and invested in index funds, which are pretty basic but low-cost and low-worry investment vehicles. Then I learned about tax-advantaged investment vehicles like IRAs, and got me some of those. I’m still learning about all of this, but the important thing is that I got started.

The Way is now just a philosophy, of not going into debt. I use credit cards now, but pay them off completely every month (for awhile, I paid them off weekly, then just set up autopay). I don’t have a car, but the last time I did, we bought it used, with cash. We don’t have a mortgage. We live within our means, and spend less than we earn.

This means we don’t worry about finances, for the most part. It means we don’t pay interest. We earn interest. We aren’t tied to a house, we don’t have anything expensive we’d need to sell, and we live lightly.

This is the Way of No Debt, and I recommend it highly.

 

This article was supplied by Newsletter Ready.

3 Little Tricks to Deal With People Who Offend You

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Something that we struggle with daily, that eats us up and causes stress and anger: annoying people.

You know those people: they cut in line, are rude to you in the office or at the restaurant, cut you off in traffic, talk loudly about obnoxious things, play loud music when you’re trying to concentrate, interrupt you, and so on.

These offenses are violations of the way you think people should act. And so it burns you up. Don’t worry, I’m the same way.

If you just keep letting these offensive people get to you, you’ll always be mad or annoyed. Life won’t be very good. But it’s something you can learn to deal with.

I have to admit I’m not perfect at this, but here are three strategies I use that are helpful:

  1. Get Big. I learned this one from Zen teacher Robert Thomas, who uses “Get Big” as one of his slogans that helps him to be mindful. Imagine you’re a 2-year-old toddler, who can’t have a toy or some ice creamright this minute. This problem is your entire universe, because you have no perspective, and so … you throw a fit. This is the world of a 2-year-old (I should know, I’ve had 6 of them). But as adults, we know that this is a very small problem, and in fact there are lots of other things the 2-year-old could do to be happy. Sure, that’s easy for us — we have a bigger perspective. But when someone offends us, we have a small perspective — this little offense is the biggest thing in the world, and it makes us very angry. We throw the equivalent of a 2-year-old fit. But if we get a bigger perspective (Get Big), we can see that this little thing matters very little in the bigger picture. It’s not worth being angry over. So remind yourself to Get Big, then widen your perspective.
  2. Float Down the Stream. When I drive and other drivers do rude things, I often get angry. Then I remember a trick: I imagine myself floating down a stream in a raft, and the other cars are just twigs and leaves floating past me one way or another on this stream. They don’t have to treat me a certain way, because they’re just twigs. And so I serenely float down this stream, not worrying about how the twigs float around me (though I try not to hit them, because, you know, safety first). And in truth, this is how life is — other people aren’t trying to offend you, don’t even worry about you most of the time. They are just twigs floating by. Be nice to the twigs though.
  3. Give Them a Mental Hug. This little trick can transform the way I feel about someone who makes me angry. Let’s say someone has just said something rude to me. How dare they! Don’t they have any consideration for my feelings? But of course, in this reaction, I’m not having any consideration for their feelings — only mine matter. And so I try to empathize with this rude person, and realize that they’re angry, or scared, or both. They are being rude as a coping mechanism for their fear. And so, mentally (and once in a while physically), I give them a hug. I have compassion for this scared person, because I too am often scared. We’re the same. We need a hug, some compassion, a little love.

Try one of these three tricks the next time someone makes you mad or offends you. And then smile in serenity, armed with the comforting knowledge that, like me, you are superior to the rest of the world.

This article was supplied by Newsletter Ready.

The Busy Person’s Guide to Reducing Stress

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Stress is one of the biggest causes of health problems in many peoples’ lives: it can cause heart disease, depression, anxiety attacks, sleep problems, auto-immune diseases, weight problems and more.

But we’re busy — how do we drop the stress levels down while still getting our jobs done, taking care of ourselves and our families?

The busy person might have no time for weeklong meditation retreats, mini-vacations, or weekly counseling sessions. So what can be done?

I’m going to be brief about this: there are five small things you can do. A few shifts in mindset, a couple actions that take only a couple minutes. These won’t solve the most severe stress problems, but they’ll help most of us.

  1. Be completely in one task. Instead of being in the stressful task-switching mode, take your next task, let everything else go, and just be in the moment with this one task. Let yourself be immersed in this one task, letting go of the feeling that you need to quickly rush through it, that you need to get on to the next task. There will always be a next task — the nature of task lists is that they’re neverending. So let those other tasks come later. Just be in this one task, like it’s your entire universe.
  2. See your ideals, & let go of control. Fear is causing you to be stressed, not external factors like your job or family problems. Those external things are just a part of life, but they become stressful when you fear failure, fear people won’t like you, fear you’re not good enough, fear abandonment, and so on. This fear is based on some ideal (and you fear not getting that ideal): you have an image that you’re going to succeed, be perfect, have people like you, be comfortable all the time. These ideals are a way to be in control of the world that you don’t actually control, but they’re hurting you by causing fear and stress. Instead, let go of control. Be OK with chaos and uncertainty, and trust that things will work out. You’ll fear less and be less stressed.
  3. Accept people & smile. We get upset at other people because they don’t meet our ideals of how they should act. Instead, try accepting them for who they are, and recognizing that, like you, they’re imperfect and seeking happiness and struggling with finding happiness. They’re doing their best. Accept them, smile, and enjoy your time with this person.
  4. Take a brief walk. When things are getting stressful, take 2-3 minutes to take a walk and clear your mind. A short walk does wonders.
  5. Do short mindfulness practices. You don’t have to meditate for 30 minutes to get the benefits of mindfulness. You can do a quick body scan (see how your body is feeling right now) in 10 seconds. You can pay attention to your breath for 30 seconds. You can watch your thoughts, fears, ideals for a minute. You can walk mindfully, paying attention to your body, your feet, your breath, your surroundings, as you walk. You can do each of these kinds of mindfulness practices in little bits throughout your day.

And beyond: If you have extra time after doing those things, I have a few other recommendations that will help. Eliminate unnecessary tasks on your to-do list, reduce your commitments by saying no to people, start a regular 5-minute meditation practice, eat healthier, exercise regularly, spend some quality time with loved ones, get more sleep, drink tea.

I should note that many people cope with stress in unhealthy ways — alcohol, smoking, drugs, unhealthy eating, lashing out at people, watching TV, procrastinating. Ironically these cause more stress. Instead, learn to cope without these crutches.

This article was supplied by Newsletter Ready.

The Cure for Your Distraction Syndrome

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I absolutely adore the Internet, but there’s no doubt it has made us more distracted than ever.

I can see this in myself, and in watching everyone else around me: constant use of laptops, switching between browser tabs, checking things on iPhones, typing in a message here and there … we all do it.

But it’s not a good formula for getting things done.

We may feel productive when we’re constantly switching between things, constantly doing something, but in all honesty, we’re not.

We’re just distracted.

A friend recently told me she thinks she has a problem: it’s hard to get work done, or focus on anything at all, with all of the distractions. In truth, we all have this problem.

We’re all suffering from Distraction Syndrome.

This causes people not to be able to study for class, to get important or difficult work done, to create, to be mindful throughout their day.

So what’s the cure for Distraction Syndrome?

Here’s what works for me:

  1. Become aware. See when you’re switching tasks, being pulled by social media and other distractions. See your mind rushing from one thing to the next. If you’re not aware of the habit, you’ll never change it. This awareness can be increased over days and weeks, if you just start paying attention, and notice when you’ve gone a few hours without noticing.
  2. See your main distractions. What are the things your mind runs to? What about these things appeal to you? What fears are you running from?
  3. Find one thing to focus on. You might have a long list of things to do, but you can’t do them all right now. Just pick one: something to study, a novel to read, something to write, a harder task that you’ve been putting off. You know you should do this task, but you’ve been too distracted and have been putting it off. (Note: I’m testing out One Task on the Mac — excellent single-tasking todo app. But don’t let finding the “perfect” todo app become your distraction.)
  4. Clear everything. Close all programs you don’t need. Close your computer if you don’t need it. Otherwise, close your browser, or at least all browser tabs you don’t absolutely need for this task. Turn off your phone or put it on silent and hide it. Just have this task in front of you.
  5. Set a timer for 20 minutes. Or 10 minutes, or 15, if 20 seems too long. During this time, you’re going to do nothing but focus on the one task you choose. No switching to other things. At all. If you finish the task before the 20 minutes is up, you can pick another task to focus on for the remainder of the time (and then do it again if you finish early), but no going to your distractions.
  6. Watch your mind try to run. This will inevitably happen. It’s a part of the Distraction Syndrome. It’s just you and your task, and you’ll want to run away. You’re afraid of the focus, afraid of the difficulty, afraid of the discomfort, afraid of the confusion/uncertainty. That’s OK. You can stay with the task even with the fear. The fear is what causes you to be distracted, but you don’t have to give in to it. It’s just something that arises in your mind. Sit with the urge to go to a distraction, without acting on the urge. Watch it, let it rise, then let it fall. Stay with the task.
  7. Take a break. After your 20 minutes is over, set the timer for 10 minutes, and take a well-deserved break. Allow yourself to go to the distractions. But when the break is over, go to the next task on your list (or back to the one you weren’t finished with). This break will give your mind some relief, which it needs. It just doesn’t need the relief all the livelong day.

This process, incidentally, is a form of meditation. Pretty productive meditation, actually.

But it takes practice. Try this today, see where you falter, forgive yourself and try tomorrow. With practice, you can develop a less-distracted mental habit.

 

This article was supplied by Newsletter Ready.

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