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New years resolutions

Is it not better to not make a new year observation? It’s a new decade!

Looking back over the years, we make new years resolutions every year, only to not keep them, or to find ourselves with gym memberships, hyper expensive gym equipment clogging up the front room or a years supply of weight watchers tasteless processed foods coming to your door week after week…

The point is, we don’t need to wait until a specific date to start doing something we know is good for us. Or anything for that matter. Waiting to start something.
And why do we have to wait until a New year to start something New, with our old habits still in place?

Isn’t it better to take our time, achieve the goals we already have and only when we have achieved the one’s we have can we set new ones?
Isn’t it better to take time to contemplate what we have achieved in the past year, and build on that instead of Starting anew? What was wrong with last years resolutions? – Aren’t you going to make pretty much the same this year?

Maybe not. Though, for many of us, the repetition of setting a goal, only to not go through with it until completion is probably worse than the having the ambitious goal in the first place.

Maybe we need to go about mastering the mindsets we already have, and build with our natural inclinations. Observe our essential state, what we respond best to, how long we take to recover from X and Y exercise, how long it takes for us to see a difference with such diet, or how we feel about what we want before setting out to get it.
So far, we’ve seen that it is not the possession of the objects that make us happy,
but in the striving for them. It’s the struggle to achieve such and such which grant us with the blessed results. It’s not the results. Once we have the results, we want more/better/different.

Maybe, we ought to search for ways of consistent change. Workouts that we live throughout our day to day lives. Like walking up flights of steps instead of elevators.
Using a bike to get a pint of milk instead of taking a car. Setting time aside for ourselves to reflect, reassess, resource ourselves, before the day or the next day comes.

Making lists of our negative traits, honestly, and asking for those around us to point out our negative traits in order to work on them more in depth.
Though, not forgetting to make Positive lists of what we are capable of, what we have achieved, and what we are to remind ourselves in our down times.

The idea of having a C.V. isn’t just great for work, its a reminder of what we have achieved academically, or what experience we have. Having the likes of a Modeling book, but for our accomplishments is a great way to keep us aligned with what we can do, while also giving us confidence and clarity that we can achieve it again during our times of self doubt.  Worst case scenario, you can create an instagram page -anyone can do this- and take a photo of your achievement each time, and post it. You don’t need to have a fancy following, nor do you need to follow anyone. This is for yourself. In fact, I’d advise to create a private page, where you can simply have an online reminder account of what you have achieved.

Another idea would be to have a timeline. Create a timeline from your birth, or from your conscious years and along side that have a bucket list. With your timeline, observe the big events which you are proud of, what you have achieved, your failures and moments of changing paths etc.. and with your bucket list, you can then strive towards ticking off each entry on the list and consciously placing each element on your timeline.
You can use “Trello” for this which is an easy organising system.

Did you know that Aboriginal tribes people don’t celebrate birthdays, nor do they celebrate the passing of time? They will celebrate a success, an evolution, passing a difficult point in one’s life… in other words, they celebrate what matters.

What do we do? We add another itemised  list of things to-do that we think we might need to accomplish in order to be happy. Then we sync our iCal and our Google notifications and spam ourselves with reminders to do more.

Maybe the secret remains in doing less. Coming back to our new years event, maybe we should take time out to contemplate what it is that isn’t working well for us, cut out what is holding us back, redefine what it is that we want, but most importantly take time to admire what we have accomplished this year.

Maybe it’s not all about achieving, but simply living. Do we need to achieve to feel content? In fact, that is what needs to be defined. What makes us feel fulfilled, isn’t necessarily about achievement, but meeting our needs and the needs of those around us with our basket of personal talents.

At this point in life, I want to be less hard on myself. This is about where I am in life. Not about what I want this year. In fact, life is more milestones and checkpoints, with inner confirmations and what feels right to us than it is about to-do lists, achievements, sixpacks and squats…
In fact, at this point I want functionality and efficiency. I’m not searching to be the best, nor am I searching to be better than anyone. Right now, my north star is having optimal health, being physically capable, having good relationships with others, listening to my body, my intuition, and how I feel. Having goals that show on the outside start from the inside. Since last October (2018), I’ve been planting some healthy seeds in my mind, reading interesting uplifting books, taking steps to get back to health, become aware of what I am doing that is affecting me, etc. and I’m taking my time about it.

I’m pretty much undisturbed by others at this point. I’ve cut myself off social media, hardly spend time on facebook (only for practical reasons like selling something, or a contact I don’t have on my phone…), I’ve deleted my instagram account, and I’ve started feeling better. No, actually I’ll correct that; I’ve started feeling great ! I’ve started going out again, I’ve started meeting people, going for bike-rides, setting goals outside…

By all means, clean out, make space for new things to come. Of course.
But, what I am saying is, accept what you have, be happy with it, and use it to get more of what you already have. Rejecting what you have/where you are won’t help you. It’s like shooting yourself in the foot because you don’t like your foot. Then you’ll be limping, might have to amputate your foot, and you’ll have a carbon foot instead which probably isn’t what you want. (Sorry if there are any amputees reading this, I mean no harm!)

This year,
Take a look at what you have done, instead of looking at what you want to do.
Take a look at where you are, compared to where you want to be.
Be grateful for what you have, instead of always wanting more.

  • Observe more.
  • Note down what you have accomplished so far, on your way to your North star (its an adventure!)
  • Define what has been working for you.
  • Define what isn’t working so far.
  • Redefine why we want certain things, instead of simply wanting them to please others.
  • Struggle well – Read Ray Dalio’s “Principles”
  • Efficient incorporated workouts in our day to day lives
  • Make a Bucket-list Timeline
  • Celebrate what matters over unconscious traditions
  • Have a North star to go towards, but don’t time it, go with the flow of life.
  • Do what is essential, healthy. Don’t force against the river, you’re not a salmon!
  • Have a break from social media – you deserve it after all these years of saturation!

It’s time for a change from everything we have been doing.
Time for a different approach. Maybe it is the new year after all… 🙂

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Your Keys to action in Paralysis (r)

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One word at a time, and then another, and another, until you’ve created an article so big, so interesting, and you have achieved it.

You can’t achieve a goal you don’t set. You cannot achieve a goal you are not aiming.

This then becomes simple. What do I want to achieve? 

Just as a mile starts with a step, start with an idea and a small action towards what it is you want.

WHAT CAN I DO?

We are all capable of doing specific actions. These actions don’t have to be intensely difficult. Though, it is these actions that we have repeated over and over that have become habit. It is the Habit, the automatism of action, which is easy. It is because we have repeated these actions over and over that they have become easy, and if ease wasn’t enough, they have become refined too!

What habits do we partake in day in and day out that we don’t even think about anymore?

Once we have found the habits we have already practiced: DO I REALLY WANT THIS HABIT?

If the answer is NO, then it’s time to implement and find a goal which, when cracked open and simplified into small simple baby steps, becomes a series of easy TO DO steps we can take action on without breaking our heads open or feeling overwhelmed. It is crucial to break tasks down into bite size chunks which make sense.

Now, I have many aspirations in life, in fact I am ambitious beyond my wildest dreams.
My only problem… taking action. Yes, I am human too!

We stop taking action and go back to our comfort zones, or in other words we become stagnant and procrastinate ( because we don’t know where to begin, or we think we aren’t good enough, or we are afraid we won’t be able to live up to the task, or that we don’t have the skills required…). Though, once we become aware that we are living in paralysis around the idea of a goal, through observation, we’re able to make a change.

We make changes by introducing incremental changes in direction. And the directions we go towards are those we envision in our minds.

So, I decided, one October evening, to create lists of things I wanted. These lists are what define what we want and how we are going to break down the steps for each implementation we are going to take.

It’s important to note that we’ll fail enough times to solidify what we want and our Will, will then crystallize into a concrete course of action. We’ll fail, until we learn enough lessons for us to truly know what we want and if it’s really worth it.

1) Slow Down: We need to take the time to be centered and at ease with ourselves first.

2) Define: We must Take the time to define what it is we want and if what we want is truly worth it.

3) Break it Down: Once we know what we want. We Break down “our goal” into simple, easy, tasks which we will be capable of managing.

4) Takeing our time: Taking our time is ever so important. It’s one of our most important ressources if not THE most important resource we have. If we live in a permanent state of fear, that there isn’t enough,
or that we don’t have enough time, or that we have to get everything done NOW; we won’t achieve anything at all. (We’ll probably end up in a state of paralysis due to “not having enough time to accomplish…” what we’re supposed to achieve in a year or two years… Let’s give ourselves the gift of time.

5) Letting go: By all means we should go get what we want to get and achieve what we want, though learning to let go and give ourselves a time out from time to time. “Pushing ourselves beyond our limits” is a great quote for instagram, but we’ll push our self into burn out if we don’t let go once in a while.

6) It’s all meant to be: It will all work out! And if it doesn’t, know that the door we were pushing against wasn’t supposed to open at this time. Life is smart, so much so that it gives us what we need when we need it. Not what we want, but what we need, and most times that’s more than enough. Trust that it will work out.

“All our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them”

Walt Disney

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What you Need to Know about Social Media (r)

On the one side, being exposed to all things all the time is an amazing source of development, we get to see what we are and by what we are interested.

In other circumstances, we’d have no idea that some things exist. This is a good thing. People also get to exchange and evolve no matter where they are which is helpful.

Discovering many amazing new things, not “feeling” as isolated than as if we had been alone and cut off in a cave the entire time.
It brings great competitivity and progress which comes with competition.
Though on the other, the downsides are felt in part due to the depth at which we are isolated or how “mainstream” we are. And also in part, to one’s degree of confidence or lack there of.
Comparing, which leads us to feeling lesser, unworthy or even unable to live up to “the standard” is a source of pain.
We can never keep up and this turns out to be draining.
No matter how much we share with others, we get nothing in return except confirmation about what we already know. “I’m great”, “I’m powerful”, “I’m rich”, “I’m pretty”… which are vanity criteria based on what we already know.
It also confirms that people who have more financial freedom will be able to show off more, or those who have a standard of beauty which appeals to the masses will be put on a pedestal and valued higher than anyone who is “different” in any way possible.
In a way, its back to high school with the rich kid/poor kid/ Confident kid/Unconfident kid again…
This sense of high school 2.0 is very unproductive for anyone who is observing. Also vain and an empty pursuit due to the fact that it promotes “The popular kids”. It really goes to show the reality of “wanting to fit in”. By wanting to fit in, you naturally aspire to be a product of mass consumption, a product of mass exposure.
Social media also gives the illusion that one is or isn’t necessarily liked based on superficiality.
This is a faulty parameter which cannot give precise and correct results. It bases everything on the Golden Circle but inside out.
Starting with What then how then why. This cannot work; as human beings we function from the inside out, not the outside in.
Why>How>What. Spirit/heart/idea>Method/action>Intention/circumstance.
In terms of effects on our psyche and our time, it is an abomination. Our minds and nervous systems have become overstimulated and over saturated with information that we don’t necessarily need, want or even Should have in the first place.

Over 200 years ago, someones entire lifespan wouldn’t have even half of what we are exposed to in a single day. Imagine what our minds are capable of and what our mental limits are.

Faster, more, better, NOW!

Though, through fomo  and needing to know what the “next thing is “social media has exposed us to an attachment to our devices. We needn’t fear governments putting Chips in us to see where we are. We are already here, our information is passed everywhere, all the time, to limits far outside of our reach.

Our minds are saturated, which means are nervous systems are saturated and this is a clear indicator that we need to let go of all outside stimulation, especially devices, screens, and anything which has power.

We are “PUSHING” ourselves to imbibe information which has nothing to do with us. We are exposed to too much information. None which serves us correctly for what is in front of us in actuality.

When traveling in another country, I have found that being confronted to constant New information, my mind is thrilled, though my body has no time to rest as it is constantly adapting to the upcoming change of scenery and people.

The same is valuable for our brains and nervous systems in front of screens. Day in and day out we are exposed to more and more information which never lets us correctly relax and heal our over stimulated sensors. This can be damaging.

The standards around us have risen above what is humanly possible to upkeep. Over consumption has taken part so much that the world and its natural resources are collapsing. The Ice caps Are melting. Our water is filled with plastic. Governments are actually putting nuclear waste into the sea.
Corporations, making mass profit are pushing their agenda onto us based on our social media usage, what we read, what we look at etc. Everything around us has become a product to sell. Everything we see is for sale. Our lives have become studies like labrats for usage and profit.
Our secrets we now expose with the vain hope that we too will become famous. “But for what?”

We are exposed to cultures and trends that have nothing to do with us. We are born in specific parts of the world and for good reason. While growing up in specific places, we have grown to understand and perceive the world around us. The world we see and have action over is what is in front of us, not what is happening half way around the world. This is a disruption in our ways of functioning and takes away our roots, our individuality and unifies everyone with the same styles, trends and exposure which otherwise wouldn’t exist. For example: I used to meet people and observe how they spoke, their linguistic rhythms and their mannerisms. Though everyone is now exposed to the same people. This makes everyone into a clone of someone else and empowers those who have more exposure and who have trend influence.

Everything you say and do, there is proof to keep you “consistent”. Though as human beings, we are changeable, we are evolving all the time, we make mistakes, we grow, we change… If there is proof of a mistake, you never get to move on, you never get to change, nor do you ever get to be free from something that hasn’t existed for maybe 15 or 20 years.

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Golden Nuggets you’re looking for

After traveling and going through foreign experiences a good deal in our life. We get to see the same people and places in a very different way.

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For starters, once we’ve had a few experiences, it allows for a more diversified and confident standing in one’s perception of the world around. The development of our own world view creates differences in how we co-exist and exchange with others. Respect becomes more fundamental. As does the importance of taking care of ourselves; which in turn allows us to care for others at a greater extent. Just as the saying goes “It is by learning to love ourselves, that we learn to better love others…”.
Letting go of the importance of others opinions in the process of our construction. Being confronted with others long enough will fuel a need to focus more on ourselves as we come to expose what needs to be worked on. “If you don’t prioritize your life, someone else will.” We discover the need for boundaries and limitations as we confront our newfound realities with our old relationships or in the words of Mahatma Gandhi -“A ‘no’ uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a ‘yes’ merely uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble.”
Depending on how open our mind is and how accepting we are of the unavoidable challenges life brings to us. We might find ourselves either putting our heads in the sand waiting for the tigers to pass us by, or decide to force on through the jungle of our illusions.

 Moving to the other-side of the world isn’t necessarily where they find the answer they are looking for.
In fact quite to the contrary. By taking a job in another country, I often find that I get to experience a variation of what I am living at home, on the inside. So it stands to reason that I’d want to do more inner work in order to experience better externalities.

Searching for answers only I can find inside of myself, spending any time outside can become futile and even repetitive.

In the book, “A technique for producing ideas” by James Webb Young, the process of “Digesting ideas” and “Different combinations” explains a good deal about how our mind takes in information and then spits it out in the form of perfect ideas. This process of creation is how many fruitful ideas come to be.

I normally find that, from boredom comes creation. It is when I sit still and stay with what ever is making me bored and combining that with something I want to do. That is when the creation begins.

With such technological advancement and such commercial competitiveness and innovation; nearly everyone has access to a smart device with internet.  This access, even homeless guys in Barcelona with their shopping carts sitting on the side of cafés to get free wifi, have more or less the capacity to evolve on the same level as anyone at home in Paris. Information is out there in abundance.

Never have human-beings been exposed to so much information. “Information used to be as rare and precious as gold. (It is estimated that one weekday edition of today’s New York Times contains more information than the average person in seventeenth-century England was likely to come across in an entire lifetime.” Hence, the need to be highly selective with the curation of what we put in our minds.

Creating a plan or list of short term goals to accomplish is very easy to Execute.

It is by imposing the pressure of building a mountain in one night that we get crushed by that same mountain. This creates inertia or paralysis in our action taking.  It is by placing a small stone everyday that a mountain comes to be formed, so to speak.

Though, in order to keep one’s mind vivid, it’s important to cut off from outlets like social media or youtube or netflix and others alike as they can rapidly take over our task at hand and we’ll find ourselves having lost a few hours listening or watching something unrelated to the task we had.

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Being able to drift is important, even if you are working intently towards a project, it is very easy to forget the outside world and just focus unproductively on a task for hours at a time.
What’s so important about it? 

The fact we drift while working, is simply that the task at hand is less interesting to us than what we think or what is actually on our phone. Our work is sometimes less interesting to us than what we would rather be doing.

Times of hyper productivity, and times of Sloth-like hibernation.

I apply my own dual function of sloth like rest and hyper productivity in to this idea.

When you focus on the task at hand , you have bursts of productive energy which becomes very creative and this ultimately makes for better work.

When  I have the idea that I’m not working hard enough, (even if I am.) I go and make a chess move and this gives me the notion that I’m not working hard enough, because on one side of my mind I’ve allowed myself to play.

This “Play-work” Technique has allowed me to end my work days, with the entire notion of fulfilling all my tasks, having high results and being able to leave the office full of energy and creativity to complete what I want to complete.

Simply because I have played my Tetris or Chess for minor periods of time during my day. I get to decompress while I work, and focus intently and then go about my tasks and goals once I leave the office at full capacity of energy and creativity.

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I find myself repeatedly agreeing to the fact that if something is important enough to us, we’ll get it done. Be it inside of our head or in physical reality.

Stepping away from people who need immediate results may be a solution which might bear its fruits on the long term…
Maybe I wasn’t in the right place, maybe they weren’t the right people.

When the people surrounding us matter, our phones stay tucked away and we go away feeling revived and awake rather than wondering why we lost our time.

To me it seems like the rise of social media is in order to at first give us importance ( facebook), then to diversify our intrests (pintrest/instagram), then for us to find our voice (twitter) after having searched if we are correct or not before (google). Though above all, learning to turn off our devices and just take a breath of fresh air…