Tag Archives: quotes

Practice what you know and you’ll be happy

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It said that truths are often forgotten only to be rediscovered in somewhat similar shape and form. Just look at happiness – one of the most studied topics in the history of human kind. We know more about happiness then about almost any other subject. Countless books have been written on the subject of happiness; and funny enough, some authors even tried giving a list of steps you need to do in order to be happy. Yet so many of us are unhappy.

The problem is that knowing and practicing are not the same thing. We all know that when hitter steps in batters box he should hit baseball out of ballpark. But give us a bat and we would look ridiculous while trying to do something we know so much about when we see it on TV. We allow our brains to simplify until the point where everything looks so easy, yet it becomes so hard when we actually need to do it.

If there was no distinction between knowing and practicing – being well-spoken would be inherent trait since we all talk. But, only few of us actually pay attention when speaking. Others are too busy thinking about problems of the past, expectations from the future and that video on YouTube they need to revisit and watch.

In this moment, if you allowed yourself to think and dream – you would find that you absolutely know in which direction you should head out in order to be happy. True enough, you also know doubts, uncertainties and obstacles that are keeping you from starting toward your goals and happiness.

It all comes down to asking yourself – will you stand up and bask in the light of doing or stay crouched in the dirt of knowing? Will you actually practice what you already understand? Will you commit yourself to refocusing your mind from distractions onto things that you truly care about? Will you allow yourself to be happy?

Do what you can, with what you have, where you are - Theodore Roosevelt

Do what you can, with what you have, where you are – Theodore Roosevelt

Reduce dependencies and tune out distractions

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By now you have probably experienced depressing impact circumstances and people can have on your plans. You were doing great and going toward the goal when suddenly external influence changed everything. Losing control you got upset and eventually your focus is completely broken, crushing you for a day and leaving you crippled for a week as you try to regroup and reorganize you plans.

This may bring up lots of questions like: Do you need to involve yourself in extended planning discussions? Should you be aggressive until others start realizing their negative impact? What about prevention of unexpected circumstances? Do you need a roadmap on dealing with possible negative scenarios? Should you argue with others about your plans?

To all previous (and similar) questions answer is easy: no. What you simply need to do is make plans with less dependencies and conditions. Do not make plans which assume that everybody will act in their best interests. When you actually take time to think about it, you can easily realize that people seldom act in their best interest. As soon emotions kick in, majority of us will completely lose it.

Don’t allow yourself to do that. Fight against impulsiveness that takes you away from your goals. Take the charge and own your plan to the point where you are ready and committed to do everything by yourself. Do not run away from obligations and lure yourself with false promises of somebody else doing your work. Nobody will.

Only you can do your work. Only when your plan has as little dependencies as possible are you ready to begin. With clarity it’ll be obvious why top performers are also the ones that do not shy away from obligations but rather strive to carry everything on their shoulders. Only when you start refusing to count on scraps from others and commit yourself to your personal excellence will you be able to bask in the joy of pushing toward your goals oblivious of obstacles and distractions.

Take your life in your own hands, and what happens? A terrible thing: no one to blame. - Erica Jong distractions

Take your life in your own hands, and what happens? A terrible thing: no one to blame. – Erica Jong

Embrace the grind – let your actions define you

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The one thing that you should do every day is to remind yourself where you are going. Remember the plans that you’ve made for yourself. Recite them every morning. Own that easiest and indispensable building block of living happy and fulfilled life – be present and know where you are actually going. Understand true motivation and purpose behind your actions.

Once you are truly on the path toward your goal, the only thing left is to start enjoying the journey. That’s where most people start to struggle. They stay so focused on the goal that they allow frustrations of not yet arriving to build up to the point of bursting. Why? Getting upset that you haven’t already arrived will not make you reach your goal faster. Even worse, in most situations, it’ll actually put you further away from your goal.

Building up understanding and appreciation of the journey toward goals is indispensable skill that we all need to develop. Love your struggles. Appreciate the grind that brings you closer to your goals. Rejoice that your destination is long and hard, allowing you to celebrate not once, but multiple times for each and every milestone you pass on your journey. Reject doubts that are trying to get a hold of you and arise above petty excuses and empty dreams of everything changing once you arrive at certain destination.

Stop focusing on the goal when that goal is just a mean to another end. You are not reaching an end point, but yet another marker on the longer path your drew for yourself. Focus on the happy fact that you are performing in the moment and that you are staying true to the decisions you’ve made. And stop shielding yourself from excitement. Allow your inner self to release cry of joy for every single victory no matter how small or trivial it may seem. You deserve to celebrate and be celebrated for every positive impact you make.

Only when you put journey ahead of destination will you be ready to conquer anything you set yourself toward. The happiness belongs to those who love each and every moment of what they are doing. And if you are on the path toward your goals, nothing is preventing you from joining them. Embrace the grind.

The chief cause of unhappiness and failure is trading what you want most for what you want right now - Zig Ziglar. Grind for the long term.

The chief cause of unhappiness and failure is trading what you want most for what you want right now – Zig Ziglar

Time for BeastMode – Creating yourself

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It is paradoxical that in this era of abundance we are so easy to slack off. Here we are, in the moment of reading this, able to watch and consume almost anything on the great world wide web. And yet, in this sea of choice, so many of us choose celebrity gossip and news. Are humans truly that shallow? Or is it that we are shaped by our choices? That so many of us when confronted with buttons that say Easy and Hard, will always press Easy.

With each action you take, you train yourself. The same way someone trains themselves to get upset and mindlessly yell, other people train themselves to calm down and approach the problem with clarity. Ultimately, you are the one deciding your fate. Others can plead, force, push you around – but it is you who signs off on what will happen.

So, think before your act. Know that each repetitive action you take brings you closer to automation in your brain. Remember the person you want to be and act like it. Never will be easier to make the right choice than it is right now. Picking what you know is the wrong choice is not only bad for the present, it also will set you back in the future. Your brain remembers, so the next time you are confronted with the same choice it’ll lean you toward the same wrong action even harder.

Bring out the fire in yourself and fight to choose right the first time. Do not shy away or pacify yourself with busy thoughts. Understand that you can’t live in the past or the future. The only time you truly impact is the ever fleeting present. So, make it count. Fill your actions with desire and caring so that you can remember them fondly when present becomes past. Battle the best you can so that upcoming challenges become laughable once they materialize from the future as part of the present facing you.

The time to make breakthrough is now.

Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself. -George Bernard Shaw Focus

Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself. -George Bernard Shaw

Stop making excuses

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Doesn’t it feel great when there are others you can blame for something that went wrong? When your effort and time ended in a loss and now you can say – it was because of certain someone or something? Do you feel positive vibe when trading your responsibilities for excuses and pinning the blame somewhere else?

You don’t? Well, you are right. After things go wrong, in the grand scheme of things, blame actually doesn’t matter that much. The only thing that matters is how you feel about your actions. Whether or not you have succumbed to the pressure and circumstances or you raised above them.

When you are part of a group effort don’t be surprised to witness that some people will actually start working against themselves. If they came to conclusion that your team will lose, they will actually start working toward that outcome, just to prove themselves right. It is truly paradoxical how some of us will let emotions rule; all the way to the ruin.

And when blame is not readily available in the present, even invoking distant past is an option. Some of those lucky enough to have supportive parents can even manage to say: yeah, my parents never told me how terrible world actually is. How everything is so much different from what I was taught and told. Somehow, parents not telling little Johnny that Santa Clause doesn’t actually exist and that he may run into difficulties in life is what keeps him from performing in the present.

Obviously, don’t join the choir of ridiculousness. Be the voice of reason. Stand behind your actions, not only when it easy, but when it’s hard. Especially then – be the foundation on which others can lean and focus on following your path regardless of noise around you. Do not take excuses even when they hand them to you on a silver platter. Stay directed toward the destiny you designed for yourself. You do not need excuses, because in the end – they won’t make you happy and, more importantly, won’t even matter.

The search for a scapegoat to take blame and find excuses is the easiest of all hunting expeditions. -Dwight D. Eisenhower

The search for a scapegoat is the easiest of all hunting expeditions. -Dwight D. Eisenhower

Stick to your childhood dreams. Reach the stars.

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Most people, when they remember their childhood dreams, often find them silly and far disconnected from life they are currently living. Of course, they can promptly provide you with a list of reasons why those dreams are unachievable. Those few who have actually tried following their childhood dreams will often say how hard it was even to start going, yet alone get anywhere near what they dreamed about. Most of us can accept a statement that life is not a dream as a solid fact. That sweet dreams are simply not compatible with harsh reality.

It’s understandable and it’s undeniably true – some dreams are just too wild. Some dreams are incompatible with people around you. And some dreams are actually silly. So, yeah – you probably won’t be traveling outside of solar system in next 10 years.

But what about dreams of having fulfilled and happy life? What about your dream job? What about wanting to be in shape and workout? What about hundreds of other small and happy dreams you had for yourself when you were younger and wanted to accomplish? Are those also unattainable? Or you are too distracted to even remember them any more?

Do not kid yourself that you are in a transition period. Everyone can slip and have a bad day or two. But there is no such thing as a year-long slip. You are who you are in the moment of reading this. Whether you are happy with who you currently are is topic for another discussion. But the good news is that you can be the person you decided to be. Simply remember your childhood dreams and be honest – if you went back in time what would be the reaction? Would you make yourself proud? Repulsed?

Think about it. And do not let your goals to slip your mind. Deep down in yourself you’ve always knew what you were destined to be. You are the only one that decides whether your dreams will become your reality. So, stop making excuses and start making your dreams happen.

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. -Oscar Wilde Dreams

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. -Oscar Wilde

Keep marching on your way toward success

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When you are well on the path toward your goal, you may find yourself at crossroads. Looking back on everything accomplished so far you may start to feel as if it’s time to “rest”; stand still for a bit and do nothing – just for sake of it. Your brain doesn’t know better and whether you like it or not it will often try to protect you. You should recognize the helpful intention but you should also reject the notion and keep going toward your goals.

It is said that laziness is a habit of resting when you are not really tired. It’s easy to fall into this habit and allow it to overwhelm you over time. And then as you age you find yourself resting more and more often. Why? Because collective thought of humanity said it must be that way? Because it’s the way things are?

Nothing could be farther from the truth. Especially in this day and age it’s easy to find examples that prove otherwise. You can witness humans in their 50s who are more fit and focused than they were in their 20s. In days of record setting obesity in teens and young adults you have scores of 80 year olds who are completing marathons each year.

What is it that fuels this shocking contrast? Maybe it is that we do gain wisdom with age, so that we find trading couch and pizza eating in front of a screen for outdoor challenge a no-brainer. Maybe we do not know better when we are young so we allow easy excitement and shallow fun to consume our best years.

Or maybe it is regret. Maybe as we draw near to the moment when we will finally be gone from this world we start realizing how much time we have wasted. How many unnecessary stops and detours we have taken. How we should plan rests as meticulously as our goals… and join the two whenever possible.

The next time you feel like taking a break just for sake of it – don’t. Recognize that only you can stop yourself. And that there is simply no need to do that. Keep marching.

Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm. -Winston Churchill

Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm. -Winston Churchill

Creatures of habit and routines that rule you

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When you take a closer look at living beings on Planet Earth you’ll invariably start to discover certain patterns in their behavior. You will see that every animal has habits it conforms to while it goes through it’s day. Of course, pretty soon you will see that majority of animals don’t even realize the patterns and routines that rule their lives. They stumble through their day without noticing all the shortcuts they could take and improvements they could make.

You will be shocked when you discover how many of these animals are healthy, full-grown humans. How many of them don’t even pay attention during most of the day. How they are trapped in their own negative thoughts or events that happened years ago. How they’ve developed a routine that makes them wade unhappily through every single waking hour of their lives, while clinging to status quo simply because they won’t think for a second, and start fighting for themselves.

That’s the most striking thing. Almost every human in the world today has the capacity to stand up and take the ownership of their life. True, some of us are more free than others. But I will argue that if you are reading this text on the screen of your electronic device, you can make a difference. The weight of burdens you carry does not matter – you can still make a stand for your and lives around you.

Decide what you want to do with your life and how you can help others. Do not let world, happenstance, negative thoughts or circumstances decide your habits. Design your routine for yourself. Consciously pick who and what you serve. And even if you want to surrender to your anxiety and fears – by all means – do it. But don’t do it unconsciously, while tricking yourself with other busy thoughts. Say it out loud and force yourself to acknowledge what you are doing.

Only when you make a conscious effort to realize your reality will you be on the path of building a routine which serves you as much as you serve it. Routine is a powerful master that can lead you all the way to the rags or the riches. You have the power to choose what your routine consists of. Choose wisely.

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. -Aristotle

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. -Aristotle

Addition by subtraction. Remove unnecessary things from your life.

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Do you ever imagine yourself living in the distant past? And how do you see that past? Glorious and exciting as movies and popular media try to present it? Or you imagine yourself vulnerable, ill equipped for time travel, struggling to accept amenities of simple life?

Even recent past can seem daunting. Just think about everything you would’ve missed if you go back only 30 years in time. All the choices you simply couldn’t make, innovations you would need to wait out…. lotteries you could win if only you remembered the numbers.

Not surprising, some people find past and less choice a positive turn of events. It is easy to forget how overwhelmed we are nowadays. How many choices we need to make each and every day, glued to our smart device that seems to keep ringing through the whole day, telling us of yet another thing we need to do.

And yet, there is no reason for it to be this way. We should rule choices rather than allowing choices to rule us. If choice is trivial, remove it from your thoughts. Do not allow anxiety to get a hold of you and push you into seeing every choice as a matter of life and death. Take a moment to step back and look at what you are doing. Realign yourself toward what is truly important.

Mathematics is probably the closest we humans have came to universal language of cosmos. And math can well show that subtracting a negative number will increase score in the same manner addition of positive number does. Use your ability to choose less. Remove everything meaningless from your life.

Nothing prevents you from enjoying each and every moment you live. But to get there you need to remove your busy thoughts, meaningless tasks, shallow ambitions and unhappy relationships. Remove things that hold you back, so that you can rediscover how long day actually is. And how there is time for everything you want. Subtract everything that is negative and – just go.

Civilization is the limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities. -Mark Twain

Civilization is the limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities. -Mark Twain

Keep your promises. Hold yourself accountable.

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When you look at the list of traits people can have it’s easy to get lost in admiration. Confident, helpful, bold, excited, caring, brave, unselfish, wealthy, respectful, resilient, smart, well-spoken, persistent, encouraging, dependable, witty. And here is the best thing – you can be all of that. This is not a game where you need to pick and choose. You can make yourself into whatever you want to be.

All you need to start are just two things: honesty and determination.

When you are honest to yourself, everything comes easy. No one knows you like you know yourself. You can bend the truth for others, tweak conditions and circumstances of anything you wish to misrepresent. Depending on how good you are at it, you may completely fool others. Heck, you may be so great at it that you end up as wealthy career politician. But if you are honest with yourself you’ll always know and feel how much you are misrepresenting the reality.

Here determination comes into play – focus on your goals and honestly hold yourself accountable. Know what you promised and make yourself deliver on that promise. If you said that it will be done today – it will be done today.

Of course, while marching toward your goal you’ll come onto obstacles and excuses. Do not give in. Whether it’s other people or your own brain working against you – it doesn’t matter. Do not give in. Thoughts that are trying to protect you – by making you take a breather and procrastinate – may seem easy. Do not give in.

Say to yourself that you are not into easy. That you are on the path of keeping your promises because you always keep your promises. Do it once, and you can do it again. And again. Until you became everything you wanted to be… by simply keeping your promises.

These woods are lovely, dark and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep. Promise

These woods are lovely, dark and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep