Month: August 2017

Conquering Procrastination

One question that meditation has taught me to ask is: Where is the resistance?

In meditating, there is always something that is trying to grab my attention. Often, all I need to do to get rid of it is figure out what it is, acknowledge it, and label it.

“Okay, my mind wants to focus on that upcoming meeting. That’s good to know.”

I can label it, go back to meditation, and then address that issue when I’m done with my meditation. If the meeting is weighing on me, then maybe I need to spend some more time preparing. I’ve identified the problem, and I can then take steps to ease my anxiety.

Lately, I’ve been trying to ask the same question of my productivity.

Continue reading “Conquering Procrastination”

How to Earn More Money

Everybody is always looking for ways to make more money.

The Internet abounds with articles about side hustles and negotiating raises. There are entire television channels devoted to following stock market investments. Being a co-host of a show about angel investing can help catapult you into consideration to be a vice presidential candidate.

But from what I’ve seen and read, it looks like most people are taking a scattershot approach to making more money.

People try a little bit of this and a little bit of that. They jump into a side hustle and then when that doesn’t work they try another.

Like most other things that I talk about, I think it makes sense to look at earning money in a more systematic way. If we really want to make more money, we should understand the landscape. Continue reading “How to Earn More Money”

Comfort is Not Happiness

I spend a lot of time reading, thinking, and writing about happiness.

For years before I started writing here, I was just looking for ways to improve my own life. I wanted to understand why people who seemed like they had everything were still unhappy.

I wanted to find the traps that others fell into so that I could avoid them.

It is quite clear to me at this point that most people are not as happy as they could be. 

And I believe that the main culprit is mistaking comfort for happiness.

Continue reading “Comfort is Not Happiness”

Act Like the Person You Want to Be

This is an article that I have had kicking around in my head for quite some time.

It was originally an uplifting and positive article. The context has changed, though. The world has changed.

The idea centers on a Kurt Vonnegut quote.

“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be very careful what we pretend to be.”

This is a very powerful truth. One that I firmly believe we should harness to become better people. Continue reading “Act Like the Person You Want to Be”

The Three Fuels of Productivity

I read a lot of self-improvement books. Most of them are garbage.

Sure, they may have useful tips and tricks, but usually they contain about enough useful information to fill a blog post. This is then surrounded by fluff, anecdotes, and flowery language to meet the word count for a book.

This is what I expected when I picked up Chris Bailey’s The Productivity Project. I anticipated some helpful tips, but mostly fluff.

That is not what I got.

This book is one of the rare finds that actually has a lot of useful information. Continue reading “The Three Fuels of Productivity”

Not Making a Decision is Making a Decision

It is easy to become overwhelmed with choices.

We live in a world of options, and decision fatigue is a real problem to which many people succumb.

Sometimes we just don’t have the willpower at the end of a long day to make good decisions

Often we defer making decisions entirely. Sometimes it feels like the easiest option is just not to make a decision. Or, a variation on this, we make a decision that we will decide at some other point in the future.

The thing that we often forget is that when we fail to make a decision, we are implicitly making a decision to stick with the status quo. Continue reading “Not Making a Decision is Making a Decision”

Does the Meaning of Life Matter?

One fast track to a happy life is meaning.

Research repeatedly shows that individuals with a sense of meaning in their lives are happier than everybody else.

A sense of meaning or purpose gives us a feeling that we are part of something larger than ourselves. This, in turn, fuels self-worth, a sense of identity, and a feeling of community and belonging.

All of these are traits that boost happiness, so you can see how meaning can be a super booster.

So all we need to do is figure out the meaning of life.

Continue reading “Does the Meaning of Life Matter?”

Make Your Life More Like a Video Game

When I was growing up, the consensus of the intellectual crowd was that video games were bad for you.

No good could come of sitting in front of a screen instead of going outside. Video games were going to turn our brains into mush.

In some more extreme cases, violent video games were blamed for school shootings.

Since then, however, there has been a quiet revolution. Continue reading “Make Your Life More Like a Video Game”