We all want more happiness, better health, increased productivity and improved relationships. We want to be able to motivate ourselves to do the things we know we should do to enhance our lives. I try to help myself and others to achieve all that through this blog.
Here’s a collection of posts from the last couple of years that I consider to be the best, considering the popularity and comments from the readers. Most articles are short, and take only a few minutes to read. Please let me know through your comments if this collection could form a useful ebook…
Lately, I have been wondering about the contradictions in our thoughts and actions:
We want to be slim but we eat too much
We want to be smart but we miss the class, or don’t read the books
We want happy relationships but we sabotage them with our actions
We have dreams but we don’t set goals
We want to achieve our goals but we don’t plan
We plan but don’t take the action
We worry about retirement but we don’t save
We want to finish the project but we don’t stay focused
We want to wake up early but we don’t go to bed early
The list goes on. Are human beings lazy, indisciplined, indecisive and stupid by nature? Do our genes not have the willpower to fight temptations, to persevere, to do the right thing?
Feeling sad, depressed or unhappy? Does life look gloomy, and the world seems dreary? Try one of the following tested and proven tips to achieve an instant shift in your emotions and feelings:
1. Be grateful for the things you usually take for granted…
Being alive and healthy
For the basic stuff: food, water, clothes, shelter, electricity…
Your skills: reading, writing, thinking, driving, writing, and other
People in your life: family, friends, people you love, people who love you, those who had a positive influence in your life
2. Make someone happy…
Compliment people: for their appearance, intelligence, skills…
Appreciate others: for what they do for you, for their helpfulness… your family, co-workers and others; say ‘thank you’
Last night I got an email from an old friend. She wrote:
“Someone I loved for 12 years broke up with me to marry someone else. I am shattered. How can I be normal? In fact, I don’t want to be normal. My positivity is not working. All self-motivation formula are failing. I just want to commit suicide. You said, choose to live, no matter how miserable life is… accept the things you cannot change. But I have lost all hopes… what can I do? My mom has a lot of dreams for me, but I have no hope…”
I am sure she must have already heard all forms of consolation and advice from family and friends e.g.
He wasn’t meant for you. He was not good enough for you…
Things could be worse: People break up even after marriage…
There’s someone for you; you will find him if you allow yourself…
It’s OK to be depressed, but for how long, is your choice…
Forget positivity; just acknowledge the good things you do have…
Don’t worry about motivation; just try to focus on other motives in life, besides having a partner you love…
Suicide is the surest way to end all misery and grief, but it also ends all hopes and possibilities…
There are people who love you, who believe in you, who look up to you for inspiration, who have hopes and dreams for you… don’t let them down.
Right now you have made a choice: to be depressed, to think and feel in a certain way, to not let any positive thoughts enter your mind… tomorrow you can choose to think differently and feel differently.
So I am not going to tell her any of that. Instead, I said a little prayer for her. What would you say to her?
A book full of selected quotes from Paulo Coelho’s many top selling books, including The Alchemist, The Zahir, Brida and Manual of the Warrior of Light. Some of the quotes from the chapter, The Path:
In order to have faith in his own path, a warrior does not need to prove that someone else’s path is wrong.
In order to arrive you must follow the signs. God inscribed on the world the path that each man must follow. It is just a matter of reading the inscriptions he wrote for you.
When we postpone the harvest, the fruit rots, but when we postpone our problems, they keep on growing.
In order to live fully, it is necessary to be in constant movement, only then can each day be different from the last.
There are moments in life when we need to trust blindly in intuition.
I shared a table with an old wise man while having coffee today. After telling me a lot about himself, he asked me the two questions that I think every Chinese asks every non-Chinese in Hong Kong: How long have you lived in Hong Kong? And do you speak Cantonese? My answers are: More than 10 years, and no. David went on to ask the dreaded question: Why not? I explained why it’s never been my priority. He then offered the most profound advise: Just learn two new words every day!
Achieving big goals through small steps has long been established as a success principle. Imagine what could happen if every day we
exercised for just half an hour
replaced just one unhealthy snack with a healthy one
walked down the stairs instead of taking the elevators just once
spent just 15 minutes to breathe, or think, or unplug, or pray
noticed just five good things in our day/life
complimented just one person, or said one thank-you, or one I-love-you
saved just x$ for that special something or that special someone
read one useful piece of information or inspiration
took one small step towards one of our goals
It all starts with one small step! What will be yours?
How’s it going readers? Starting from today, I’ll be putting up a couple of links from around the blogosphere of articles that are either a must-read, extremely useful, or just plain interesting. These will of course be sticking to the themes of healthy living, productivity, business, personal finance, inspiration and life in general.
Without further ado, here are 8 interesting articles for the week ending Sunday, 12/04.
This poem continues to be one of the most inspiring pieces for over ten years. It’s been published in many forms. Here’s part of it:
I read of a man who stood to speak
at the funeral of a friend.
He referred to the dates on her tombstone
from the beginning…to the end.
He noted that first came the date of her birth
and spoke of the following date with tears,
but he said what mattered most of all
was the dash between those years.
For that dash represents all the time
that she spent alive on earth…
and now only those who loved her
know what that little line is worth.
For it matters not, how much we own;
the cars….the house…the cash.
What matters is how we live and love
and how we spend our dash.
I am sure most of you have heard or read about Professor Randy Pausch by now. But just in case you haven’t… his work is not to be missed!
Randy Pausch (Oct. 23, 1960 – July 25, 2008) gave his last lecture at the Carnegie Mellon University on Sept. 18, 2007. In his moving presentation, “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams,” Pausch talked about his lessons learned and gave advice to students on how to achieve their own career and personal goals. His book, “The Last Lecture” which was based on this presentation was also a bestseller. You can watch that lecture here. It’s about an hour, but very inspiring from beginning to end:
It was one of those days when I was able to notice most of the good things in life – big and small.
Waking up to a new day – alive and healthy! Running water, hot and cold! Nice clothes to wear! Fresh juice to drink! A job to go to! Beautiful weather – neither hot nor cold! Train station close to home! Train that’s always on time! My favorite corner seat! An hour of thinking and reading time! Nice office – with a sea view! The old cleaning lady who cleans with a passion and greets with enthusiasm! Clean pantry with filtered drinking water! Lots of work to do – mostly enjoyable! A Mac that’s always reliable – no virus, no spam, no hanging up! High-speed Internet access! An email from Hamza recommending another productivity software! Lots of people who trust me with their problems and impossible deadlines! An unexpected lunch meeting in a nice and quiet restaurant with the most divine tempura! New things to learn! Central air-conditioning to keep us cold, and a portable heater under the desks when it gets too cold! Lots of things to laugh about! Coming home to a loving family! Still being in love with the same person after almost 30 years! Kids (many) that we are proud of! Amazing home-cooked food for dinner…WOW!
What kind of a day do you think I had? Amazing, exciting, wonderful, of course! There were some problems for sure and a few challenging situations, but somehow they all looked small and insignificant! On any given day we all have more good things than bad things. But when we fail to notice and acknowledge them, even small problems and challenges look big and we end up having a lousy day! If our days make up our life, we can pretty much control the quality of our lives, can’t we?
We are all so busy. We have so many things to do, and so little time. We can’t get everything done. And even if we do, we don’t always get the sense of fulfillment. Most time management books try to teach you how to do more in less time. I think the secret to fulfillment is doing less, not more, but doing it with passion and attention and focus. To do less, I use the “4 D’s Principle”:
First D is for ‘Drop it’. Some things don’t need to be done at all. E.g. what would happen if you don’t take that call while having dinner with your family? What if you don’t go to pick up that friend from the airport? What if you stopped washing the tub before and after every shower? What difference would it make?
Second D is for ‘Delay it’. You notice your car is dirty. Do you have to wash it right now, or you can do it tomorrow? That email doesn’t have to be answered right now; you can do it after completing the proposal you are working on. You don’t have to open all the mail as soon as it arrives. Are there things you do every day that can be done once a week? Or things you do every week that can be done once a month?
Third D is for ‘Delegate it’. So here’s something that can’t be dropped or delayed e.g. Your child needs to be taken to a doctor. The air conditioning needs to be fixed. The customer needs a product replacement or a refund. Ask yourself if you have to do it yourself, or whether you can get someone else to do it for you. You’ll be surprised how many people are willing to do things for you, only if you ask (nicely).
Fourth D is obviously ‘Do it’. Your daily exercise. Time with your kids – reading, talking, playing, helping them with their school work, or just listening to them. Being with your loved one – the dinner, movie, walk or just being together. That course you have been wanting to do. That customer you need to call. That paper you need to write. The books you want to read. The friend you want to call. The vacation that you need. These are some of the things you won’t have to drop, delay or delegate if you follow the 4 D’s.
Look at all the stuff you do and see what can be dropped, delayed or delegated. How much more time you’ll have to do the things that really matter – that are important, as well as urgent! Please share your own examples.
One of Sara’s odd jobs is to sell FM radios at Rugby matches around London. The company pays a fixed allowance of GBP40 for selling a minimum of 100 and additional commission for everything over. Last weekend Sara had a good earning of 50 pounds, but then she lost her bag at a shopping mall with all the earning and other valuables. That’s like losing a quarter of your monthly paycheck! She was obviously quite depressed, but only for a little while, until somebody reminded here that there was nothing in that bag that couldn’t be replaced. She hoped for another Rugby match to make up for the loss.
This weekend, the group was taken to a small Rugby match in Coventry. The company didn’t expect to sell many, so they offered a commission of 1 pound per radio – no fixed allowance, no minimum target. There were about 15 students in the group and everyone thought they’d be lucky if they sold 20. That’s what the company expected too. But Sara saw a real opportunity and aimed to sell 50. Just before they arrived at the venue, the weather turned nasty – rain, hail, snow and all! The turnout of the spectators was very low; nobody wanted to listen to a student trying to sell a 5-pound radio; the sellers were freezing with cold! The group ended up selling about 300 pieces, as opposed to a 1000 at regular matches. But Sara had sold 67 of these! That means the rest of the group had averaged 15 pieces each. This was perhaps the first time the company had paid a commission of 67 pounds to an individual at a match in Coventry! We can learn quite a bit from this 22-year old student.
Please feel free to leave your comments for Sara right here.
The idea that I am about to share seems too simple, but it has changed hundreds of lives, including mine: There are things you can change (problems) and there are things you can’t change (situations).
Most people seem to go through life fighting with, and agonizing over, things they can’t change e.g. weather, traffic, economy, their appearance, sickness, death, accidents. The result is frustration, depression, anger, anxiety, lot of stress and general unhappiness in life!
On the other hand, focusing on things we can change, improves the quality of our lives. We can change our attitudes, health, fitness, quality of our relationships, spending habits, level of our knowledge and skills, and many other things in life. Life is too short to try and change others.
A favorite prayer of mine: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference!
There are two ways of going through life: Gather everything in sight, just in case you need it. Or trust that you’ll find exactly what you need, just in time. Guess which one lets you enjoy life more, lets you really stop and smell the roses?
A true story of a dying professor who shares his wisdom with the author. Very inspiring and thought-provoking stuff on life, death, family, money, emotions, love and more. Here’s an excerpt from the Tuesday they talk about money:
“We’ve got a form of brainwashing going on in our country. Do you know how they brainwash people? They repeat something over and over. Owning things is good. More money is good. More property is good. More is good. More is good. We repeat it – and have it repeated to us – over and over until nobody bothers to even think otherwise. The average person is so fogged up by all this, he has no perspective on what’s really important anymore.
“Wherever I went in my life, I met people wanting to gobble up something new. Gobble up a new car. Gobble up a new piece of property. Gobble up the latest toy. And they wanted to tell you about it. ‘Guess what I got? Guess what I got?’ These were people so hungry for love that they were accepting substitutes. But it never works. You can’t substitute material things for love or for gentleness or for tenderness. I can tell you, as I am sitting here dying, when you most need it, neither money nor power will give you the feeling you’re looking for, no matter how much of them you have.”
JK Rowling, the author of Harry Potter, gave an inspiring speech at the Harvard University Commencement Address. She talked about the fringe benefits of failure and the importance of imagination. Here’s a part of it:
“You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.
“Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations. Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way. I discovered that I had a strong will, and more discipline than I had suspected; I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above rubies.
“The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more to me than any qualification I ever earned.
“Given a time machine or a Time Turner, I would tell my 21-year-old self that personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a check-list of acquisition or achievement. Your qualifications, your CV, are not your life, though you will meet many people of my age and older who confuse the two. Life is difficult, and complicated, and beyond anyone’s total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes.”
A great motivational book about the power of our thoughts and how to apply it in our lives. A superb team of authors, teachers and speakers bring you The Secret to health, wealth, relationships and happiness.
Happiness:
A true story of a dying professor who shares his wisdom with the author. Very inspiring and thought-provoking stuff on life, death, family, money, emotions, love and more. Here’s an excerpt from the Tuesday they talk about money:
