“What separates us from the goals we set is nothing more than a series of decisions made consistently over time.” (Tweet)

A recent study found that only 46% of those who set New Year’s goals are still pursuing them just 6 months later.

Are you still pursuing yours? Do you remember what they are?

If you’re still on track, you should be approaching the half-way mark by now (half way to the desired year-end weight, half way to mastering the language or project or skill, half way to having overcome the obstacle or developed the trait).

Unless, of course, you’ve cut the race short and reverted to the status quo, doing what you’ve always done, getting the same results you’ve always got.

Goal-Setting Blues

Last year, the Journal of Clinical Psychology reported that out of the 62% of Americans who either usually (45%) or infrequently (17%) set New Year’s Resolutions, a mere 8% of them successfully hit the mark.

I’ve heard it said that we are therefore climbing a very steep probability slope that very few reach. Those voices claim that since only 8% of us reach the summit, we have a whopping 92% likelihood of failure.

Those voices are wrong.

Where Are You (the 92 or 8)?

The problem with this interpretation is that we are not all equally likely to be among those who have the qualities that lend themselves to the 8 or 92.

If you are like 92% of the goal-setting population, you have something closer to 100% probability of failure because you do those things that people who give up on their goals do.

On the other hand, if you are like the 8%, you have something much closer to a 100% probability of success because you do what the 8% tend to do.

Remember, 100% of the 8% achieved their goals.

The Only Relevant Question

So the only question that matters, then, is this: Who do you choose to be like? It doesn’t even matter who you have been like. The only question worth asking is, “What now?”

The Power of Choice

The most significant difference between the 92 and 8 are the series of decisions the 8% make that the 92% don’t.

Make different choices and Get different results. It’s ultimately that simple. Excuses and justifications leave you where you are, doing the same things you’ve always done. (Tweet)

It may feel good to blame others for your lot in life (“I didn’t do this to me, they did!”), but it also glues you in place, stuck to the circumstances you wish you weren’t in. Instead, take responsibility for the direction of your life, where you want it to go, who you want to be.

Success Comes One Decision at a Time

• You either choose to get distracted or you don’t.
• You decide to stay home or go to the gym.
• You choose chips or an apple.
• You choose to watch TV or read.
• You choose online trash or TED talks.
• You choose Facebook or face-time with your family.

You choose to fall back or run forward, to quit or push through, to doubt or believe, to obey your fears or pursue your dreams, to give up or give it all you’ve got.

You choose to delay your goals yet another day or get started on them this very moment, refusing to put off the realization of your dreams even another nanosecond.

How you answer such questions will determine whether you call the 92% home or whether you join the vaunted ranks of the 8% who change lives and accomplish great things and live with more purpose and meaning and therefore more happiness than most experience.

Are Goals Necessary to Happiness?

In a word, no. Growth, however, is. Stagnation of any kind (mental, physical, emotional, spiritual) saps happiness of its potential.

As a matter of fact, I would go so far as to say that where you are in your personal development is, except for extreme circumstances, less important than the fact that you are making progress. Movement, it turns out, is more important than position to our happiness.

Goals are nothing more than tools to help focus that progress and direct that movement. (Tweet) Can you find Milwaukee without a map? Eventually, I suppose. But I wouldn’t recommend it.

The effectiveness of the tool is not only determined by whether it’s used or not, but by the way the tool is used too. A stapler with the staples put in upside down does little good.

Likewise, poorly set goals or those set by people with attitudes that turn their goals into a battering rams that crush a destroy anything in their way or as whips to use against themselves when they fall short, is not, to my mind, a convincing argument against the tool. That some use paint to “tag” walls is not a legitimate argument against the use of paint.

But used well, goals can add happiness to our lives as we reach new heights of growth and accomplishment.

How to Set Sticky Goals (coming soon to a theater near you!)

Still, there are ways of improving the odds. So just in case you have been fighting an uphill battle with goals and resolutions, come back next Monday for 4 secrets to moving into the elite club of the 8%. It will change the way you set (and reach) your goals.

Your Turn …

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Photos by PV KS and beckstei

“You are today where your thoughts have brought you; you will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you.” ~James Allen

We are what we think about over time. We are the accumulation of all our attitudes, beliefs, fears, hopes and dreams, all the thoughts that fill our minds on a regular basis. (Tweet)

We are our own self-fulfilling prophesy. (Tweet)

We are the products of our attitudes and mental states of mind. We are the external manifestation of the internal environment we create. (Tweet)

Those who live in the poverty of the mind eventually find their lives steeped in environmental poverty as well. Those who live in the poverty of the soul find their emotional and spiritual lives impoverished too. Those whose minds play in the gutter can’t help but pick up the mind diseases that lurk there.

On the other hand, when we elevate our thinking—in time—we also elevate our circumstances. All creation begins as thought. Every invention was first born as an idea. Every discovery and development passed through the birthing canal of imagination and contemplation. Every breakthrough was initiated by the thought that formed it.

Want to Change your Life? Change your Thoughts

“The world we have created is a product of our thinking; it cannot be changed without changing our thinking.” ~ Albert Einstein

Our thoughts are the prisons we condemn ourselves to or they are the keys we use to unlock possibility and potential. (Tweet) What role thought plays in your life is determined by the nature of what you choose to consistently think about and how you choose to think it.

Just as your health is not the result of any particular meal you eat, but the kinds of meals you tend to eat generally, so happiness is not the result of any particular thought, but of the kinds of thoughts that regularly inhabit your mind.

If I think life is ugly, I will see the ugliness in life. But not because the world is predominately ugly. Ugliness is simply what will register in my mind as proof of what I already believe or strongly suspect is true about it. If I believe something is one way, I will seek evidence for that interpretation. It’s a self-fulfilling prophesy.

The Thought You Feed is the One that Grows

“A man is but the product of his thoughts. What he thinks, he becomes.” ~ Gandhi (Tweet)

Thought has a way of expanding into reality. It takes shape and form as the thing you invented, the condition you imagined and the circumstances you gave birth to as you thought them into existence.

What you think becomes true by the force of the power you give it, by the food of thought you nurse it with, the physical dimensions you create for it, the home you house it in, the canvas you paint it on.

And just to be clear, I’m not talking about supernatural powers of vibrational attraction. It’s really much simpler than all that. It boils down to some combination of these 3 self-fulfilling conditions:

1. If I think negatively, I will more likely act negatively. Action is the outgrowth of thought. So negative thinking will repel positive people and the influence, friendship and opportunities they would have brought with them.

2. How I think influences what I focus my attention on. By focusing on the negative, the positive is more likely disregarded, overlooked or downplayed, thereby amplifying and magnifying the unfortunate and ugly by comparison.

3. Thinking negativity ignores opportunity. The more my attention is trained on the negative, the less of the positive I see or even believe is accessible to me, further “proving” I just don’t get any breaks in life. And so our thoughts dim the lights on the reality we experience, not fully realizing it was never the reality but our thoughts about it that dimmed.

We See What We Seek

If I’m looking down at the dirt all the time, I’ll less likely see the flowers on the bush growing out of it, the butterfly lighted on the flower on it, the hummingbird flitting above it or the sunshine washing over it. My world, then, is what I choose to look at, the way I choose to interpret what I see, the mental state I pass the input through, the interpretive framework of thought and belief and attitude by which I process it.

Proof in a Deck of Cards

Imagine a deck of cards fanned out in front of you. If I asked you to quickly find the Queen of Spades, the King of Hearts and the Ace of Clubs, you would train your mind on the immediate task at hand and likely spot them in short order.

But after palming the deck, if I asked you to tell me what card was on either side of the three cards you found, chances are you wouldn’t know. But why? Your eyes would have actually seen them. So why wouldn’t you remember? Are you blind to the other cards? Well, no, not if you were looking for them.

But you were, in fact, effectively blind to them by virtue of what you were looking for. Your brain blocks everything that’s not the cards you were searching the deck for to more efficiently locate the cards you instructed your brain to find. In other words, to streamline the search, your brain blocks information overload.

Unless, of course, the neighboring cards you were looking for were very similar to those you were asked to find. If, for example, you were looking for the Queen of Spades and the one right next to it was the Queen of Clubs, you would likely have remembered that card.

This process is immediate and automatic and lasts about as long as you are looking for those specific cards. Change the cards you’re looking for (say, a 10 of Hearts or 5 of Diamonds) and your “blindness” adapts to the changed set of cards you were asked to locate.

The Great Conspiracy

“If you think you can do a thing, or think you can’t do a thing, you are right.” ~ Henry Ford (Tweet)

If you are convinced it will rain today, your mind will notice the clouds in the sky more than the sky around the clouds. If you think people don’t like you, your brain will focus its energy on that thought and will pick up the frowns and notice the people not talking to you even while others smile and try to get your attention.

If you think negative, you will look for the negative and your brain will more likely and more often negate the positive as an inefficient use of attention.

You have, after all, sent your brain the order: “Only find the negative because that’s all I’m looking for.” Your brain will conspire with you against evidence of the positive just to prove you right and identify what you are already looking for. Brains are quite efficient that way.

They also pick up other negative cues because they are the “cards” similar to the ones you were already programmed to find. This way, negativity reinforces negativity and the wheels of the self-fulfilling prophesy are set in motion as our brains look for evidence to back up the beliefs we already harbor.

A Simple Solution

“If you correct the mind, everything else will fall into place.” ~Lao Tzu (Tweet)

Now that you know why you feel life is conspiring against you (that you and your brain are the dominant conspirators), you’re armed with the knowledge needed to begin breaking the self-destructive, self-perpetuating habit of thought.

Here’s the simple answer: Change the cards you’re looking for by conscientiously looking for proof that life is beautiful, challenges are opportunities and the world keeps spinning in the right direction, at the right speed, following it’s correct orbit.

Then, as you replace old habitual ways of thinking with new positive ones, thereby reprogramming your brain to find better cards, you will begin to see life as something profoundly more beautiful and happy.

Life’s Buffet

This is not, by the way, an exercise in self-delusion. Just like being at a buffet and choosing some foods over others, you can choose among competing thoughts and interpretations as well. If it’s not delusional to choose pizza over oysters, it’s not delusional to choose happy over sad, noble over ignoble and positive over negative ways of thinking.

You are the master craftsman of your thoughts. What you think will eventually, and to one degree or another, become the fluid that lubricates the gears of your life. (Tweet)

So choose your thoughts wisely and change your life profoundly. (Tweet)

Your Turn …

• What habits of thoughts have held (or are holding) you back?
• Do you agree that our thoughts create our realities?
• How has your thinking transformed your life?
• Please share your thoughts below.

If you found value here or think someone else could benefit from reading this article, please share it by clicking on your favorite social media buttons.

Photo by paul bica,sky#walker, Christopher Craig and VividImageInc

“Moving on is easy. It’s staying moved on that’s trickier.” ~Katerina Stoykova Klemer

Do you genuinely like yourself (for the most part, anyway) but have “baggage” you wish would quietly pack up and move out?

Well, have you ever thought about writing yourself a breakup letter? I know. It sounds sort of schizophrenic. But humor me just for a moment.

Many of us have parts of who we are that seem to stalk us like so many paparazzi hoping to catch us with our pants down.

They crowd us, smother us, undermine, condemn and hurt us over and over and over again. And yet, we seem to keep them around year after annoying year.

I propose we write a breakup letter to our self-stalking parts to signal the end of a relationship, that they are no longer invited guests, to go away and leave us alone.

How to Breakup with your Darker Parts

A sample letter …

Dear Self,

I’m writing to let you know that our relationship is no longer tolerable. Yes, that means exactly what it sounds like. I’m breaking up with you.

So pack your bags and leave! But before you go, I want to be sure you know why I’m kicking you out.

1. I’m breaking up with the excuses

I can’t stand them anymore. You have kept me a child in adult clothing for too long. You have limited my options and turned my mistakes into failures, something to hide from, to lie about and fear.

You have damaged my ability to learn and grow from my challenges. So I have to leave you now to grow up and start taking full responsibility for my life. If you refuse to go, I’ll be forced to drop kick you out the back door.

2. I’m breaking up with the grudges and criticism

I will no longer let you bury the past in the present or whine about things that don’t matter. Complaining is impotent. I will no longer allow impotence in my life.

So I’m leaving the past in the past. You will no longer be permitted to be a part of my life. I’m done with you. It’s over. Take the ring, the promises and the photos and get out!

3. I’m breaking up with the dishonesty

I’m sick of the lies and half-truths, the blame and irresponsibility. I don’t want to put up with it anymore. So I’m simply not going to.

You are damaging my integrity and honor and self-respect. You are undermining my relationships and trustworthiness. I’m kicking you out in the cold and don’t care if it’s snowing. Good bye!

4. I’m breaking up with the fear you cower in

You have kept me hiding from myself and anxious about unlikely scenarios, frozen in immobility as I contemplate all you heap on my shoulders. I won’t let you control me anymore. I won’t let you berate me with unlikely possibilities and dark predictions and dim prognostications.

I will no longer let you tie me to the way things have always been. I will no longer allow you to tie my potential to yesterday. No longer will I allow you to shove me into corners, keeping me quiet and safe. And if you try to stay, I’ll ignore you as though you weren’t here anyway. So you might as well go now.

5. I’m breaking up with the rumors you spread in the chambers of my heart

You whisper with venomous intent that the person in the mirror is too fat or too skinny or too dumb or too ugly or too unworthy or incapable or lazy or forgetful or slow and too this and not enough that and all too often other things and all too seldom the right things. So I’m no longer accepting the lies or believing the stories or listening to the put-downs.

It’s over. From this moment forward, I am free of your impositions and misery and dishonor. I’m kicking you out and inviting something much more beautiful into my life instead. I’m inviting peace. I’m inviting happiness.

I’m inviting me.

Afterthoughts

What are the parts of your life you long to be rid of? What are doing about ridding yourself of them? Perhaps you saw some of your parts reflected in the portrait I painted above.

Can a letter such as this really end life-long habits of thought, entrenched attitudes, emotional scars and spiritual viruses that have bore down deeply into the very system that now affects us? Perhaps not. But every success, both great and small, everywhere and at all times, began with a first step.

This is a first step.

Write the letter.

Your turn …

• What do you think about writing a breakup letter to your self-defeating parts?
• What would be in yours?
• What do you think about the parts I advocate breaking up with in my sample letter?
• Please share your thoughts in the comments below

Photo by Y’amal

“In order to live free and happily you must sacrifice boredom. It is not always an easy sacrifice.” ~Richard Bach

(This is part two of a two-part series on boredom. Click here to read Part I: Are you Bored or Just Boring?)     

Boredom is a pernicious thief that steals joy from the moments a life is made of. It’s a symptom of something misaligned, an internal alarm that indicates a needed change. It’s the setting on your internal thermostat that reads “too cold.”

Most fundamentally, boredom is a sign that life is not being fully used as the precious gift it is, that something is missing, not externally in the thing that bores you, but in the character, personality, priorities or mindset of the person feeling bored.

Do you want to end the slow drip of boredom once and for all?

You can, you know. And it’s not even all that difficult either … once you’ve accepted that the cause of your boredom is inside you, not “out there,” in the stale activity, uninteresting person or lackluster event.

How to End the Tyranny of Boredom

Four characteristics that stomp out, crush and transform boredom into a happy, passionate life no longer tainted by boredom’s stink:

1. Be Curious

Let your mind go. Let your imagination soar. Let your natural curiosity free of its self-imposed restrictions. Ask questions. Seek answers. Want to know, to understand, to learn. Hunger for knowledge. Thirst for understanding.

What do curious people look like? They are people who buy books, have personal libraries, attend seminars, sign up for workshops, read reputable blogs, watch documentaries and fill their minds with more questions than answers while passionately pursuing their interests.

They stretch their minds, challenging what they think they know, deepening their growing interest in the world, in people and in life-governing principles. They are not the single-key pounding musicians that fill their lives and interests with a single passion. Their interests are eclectic, varied and many.

2. Take Action

At some point, you have to put the book down and try out what it claims. Apply the content. Put ideas to the test. Put words into action.

People of action are rarely bored. They just don’t have time for boredom because they don’t sit around doing nothing long enough to get bored in the first place. Their lives are full of challenges and meaningful activities. They do interesting things and get into what they do.

Wonder why paint smells? Go look it up.

Wonder where Timbuktu is? Get a map.

Curious about nasturtiums or carpenter ants or opera? Go learn something new.

• Improve a skill.
• Develop a talent.
• Feed your creativity.
• Work on a trait.
• Overcome a habit

Too many people sacrifice their curiosity at the altar of inaction. The world is at our fingertips and yet too many people wonder and never learn, are curious and never look, don’t know and never ask, want to and never try.

Don’t let moments of curiosity die in the swamplands of laziness, apathy or indifference. (Tweet)

Get up and pursue your desire to know and do. Feed the fragile spark of curiosity and coax it into a raging passion of hunger to discover, to challenge, to try, to explore, to build, to climb, to run, to create and live with so much passion that there’s simply no room for boredom.

3. Be Adaptable

If you don’t like what’s on TV, turn it off! If your plans aren’t working out, do something else. If the path you’re on doesn’t do it for you, don’t continue down that dead-end road just because you started it. Change course! Find a new path. Break the mold. Stop pigeon holding yourself into a tight corner of repetitive sameness.

When you can do an about-face smack dab in the middle of life’s 4-lane superhighway, you will always be able to avoid boredom by simply changing direction and doing something else.

Learn to think outside the box. If the game gets rained out, play soccer … inside … using a balloon! If the park is closed, move the picnic to the backyard … or the food court at a mall … or your living room floor.

Don’t be a victim to inflexibility anymore; learn to adapt, move on and be happy!

4. Be Spontaneous

When my daughter was young, I would pick her up from school and announce, “Guess what! We’re going to the beach!”

Other times it would be the mountains, or the children’s museum, or the nature park for a 2-mile hike. No planning or packing or dressing just right for the occasion. Just going. That willingness to be spontaneous chases boredom out the back door and opens you up to so much more life ha to offer.

Too many plans are planned to death and the thing being planned for is never done because it never gets out of the planning stage. (Tweet)

If you fear underpreparation more than you desire the thing you’re preparing to do, you decrease the likelihood of it ever getting done. Plans will lead to backup plans which will need plans to prepare for additional planning.

Be spontaneous once in a while! It won’t kill you to simply act on a few unexamined whims from time to time! (as long as there’s no spontaneous skydiving without preparing a parachute or violating basic laws of decency on an impulse!).

Doing the same things the same way, without deviation, thought or intention is a recipe for boredom. (Tweet)

So go ahead and sign up for the martial arts class or scuba lessons, guitar or ballroom dance. Take a road trip. Sing out loud. Do something you don’t usually do merely for the sake of doing it.

It won’t be long before your new-found spontaneity will drive your boredom to move out and find someone else’s life to bother.

Afterthoughts

I once heard it told of a young boy who listened to a sermon and found it extremely boring. The preacher had droned on for what seemed like a monotonous eternity. After church the boy was befuddled as his dad went on about how good the sermon had been.

“Now come on, dad!” the boy finally exclaimed, “How could you have possibly thought that sermon was any good?”

The dad’s answer is the answer I offer you as the attitude that will transform your life if adopted as your own. Boredom will forever fade into history. Each moment of each day will be experienced as a moment of possibility, a moment to cherish and nurture and kindle into something wonderful.

He said, “Son, whenever I listen to a talk at church where the speaker seems to be struggling, instead of complaining about what he’s saying or failing to say, I simply give the sermon in my mind I think he should have given. And you know what? I’ve never heard a bad sermon since.”

The greatest prescription to a life of excitement and passion is to be thoroughly, completely, unashamedly, unabashedly entertained by life.

Take interest in your own thoughts. Use them to reshape your experiences. Find something you can get excited about and go get excited about it. Change how you see and interpret the world. If there’s a bad sermon, change it, rewrite it in your mind, turn whatever you’re doing into something better.

If you’re in a waiting room or a long line, read a book or write a poem or edit an article or start creating the masterpiece of your life.

Don’t let circumstances dictate your mood. Let your attitude determine how you experience circumstances. (Tweet)

Fill your life with meaning and purpose, with service and adventure, with introspection and creativity, with spontaneity and adaptability, appreciation, curiosity and action and life will hardly slow down long enough to feel bored ever again.

Your Turn …

What do you do to keep from getting bored?
What would you have added to help end the epidemic of boredom?

Photo by BailyRaeWeavcer

“The two enemies of human happiness are pain and boredom.” ~Arthur Schopenhauer

Want to know the plain hard truth about boredom?

Boredom says more about you than it does about the thing that bores you. (Tweet)

I know this because I’m never bored anymore. But that hasn’t always been the case.

When I was younger, my friends and I would frequently find ourselves bored out of our minds. At some point in the midst of our boredom, I would ask the most impotent of questions: “So, what do you guys want to do?”

I hoped for an inspired idea, one that would ignite the powder keg of fun, opening the floodgates of possibility … assuming, of course, we could do it for free, now, and preferably from the couch with the TV on.

But alas, my friends would invariably shrug and answer, “I dunno. What do you want to do?” I would shrug back and sink deeper into a mental slouch doing whatever boring thing we were doing at the boring time the boredom set in.

The Nature of Boredom

But here’s the thing: Boredom doesn’t “set in.” It doesn’t settle on us like dust in the attic or strike us like lightening or wash over us like so much rain in a thunder storm, soaking us in waves of ennui.

Boredom is the natural state of the passively uncurious, the unadventurous and indecisive. (Tweet)

Boredom is the predictable condition of the status quo, of those unwilling to get up and move, to take an interest in things around them, to awaken, learn, or get excited about the freshness of new ideas and undiscovered possibilities.

Boredom is the side effect of disinterest, not the condition of uninteresting things. (Tweet)

Boredom is the product of an inactive mind and a body used to lethargy. (Tweet)

Boredom is as Boredom Thinks

One person can watch a Discovery Channel program on space or volcanoes or the history of fruit salad and fall asleep bored out of his gourd while another watches the same program totally fascinated.

But if boredom naturally arose from the nature of the thing that bores you, the nature of the thing would bore anyone who interacted with it.

And yet, it doesn’t. Some people simply find everything interesting.

The Tyranny of Boredom

And yet boredom is not a victimless crime. It inflicts little wounds that add up to large gaping holes in people’s lives. It’s a crime of self-disrespect as we allow the moments of our lives to slip away unused, unclaimed and unvalued.

3 Ways Boredom Undermine Happiness

1. Boredom reveals a mind operating below potential, pulled to half-mast, removed from the microwave of life too soon. (Tweet)

Wasted potential is like a sailboat with the sail only pulled to half-mast. It’s the failure to recognize the tree in the seed or the possibility in the moment. It’s a crime of omission as a self-inflicted wound.

Boredom is the price paid for lost opportunity and delayed potential. (Tweet)

It’s the oil leek on life’s driveway when cars and lives are never put into gear and driven. Dreams remain unrealized or only half-pursued. Potential is squandered, possibility muted, happiness diluted and life eclipsed by a yawn. When we fail to reach higher and become something more than we currently are, we atrophy; and there is no happiness in an atrophied life.

2. Boredom is the slow drip of time leaking into the drain of irretrievability.

When it’s chronic, boredom saps the body of energy, the soul of will, the mind of creativity and the heart of passion. It’s a trap and a cancer and the act of self-immolation all wrapped into a single tired sigh.

When we squander the irretrievable moments, we devalue the life we were given and drain it of all the color and texture life was meant to have.

3. Boredom is, well, boring!

Boredom just doesn’t play very nicely with happiness. As a matter of fact, they can’t coexist at the same time in the same person. Boredom prevents happiness from fully ripening on the tree of life. The more of one necessarily dictates less of the other.

Besides, boring just doesn’t feel very good. It sticks to the skin and coats the soul in a gray numbing fog, leaving us with the nagging feeling that we’re wasting something truly precious and unrecoverable.

Afterthoughts

Have I convinced you that boredom is really a nightmare disguised as a nuisance? If so, be sure to check out 4 simple changes you can make to forever stop the slow drip of boredom.

Your Turn …

Please share this post with others and your thoughts in the comments below.

Photo by Eric Kilby

“Faced with the choice of enduring a bad toothache or going to the dentist, we generally tried to ride out the bad tooth.” ~Joseph Barbera

I was recently sitting in the dentist’s chair thinking about my mouth. I don’t usually spend much time doing that, but that day was different.

The mouth-awareness mood was set by the dental assistant who was sucking spit, excess filling material and my lungs from the back of my throat with the aspirator.

And it suddenly dawned on me that personal development is really a lot like going to the dentist.

Sounds strange, perhaps, but not so much as you might think.

Here are 5 examples of what I mean. At the end, let me know what you think.

1. We wait to keep waiting

We hurry to get to our scheduled dental appointments on time, then have to wait in waiting rooms for our turn to wait in dental chairs for the dentist to get around to poking us with very sharp instruments.

We would do well to approach personal development with the same attitude—a willingness to wait for the process to work out the desired results as we stumble and fall and get back up again, learning and growing as we go, usually an inch or less at a time.

Our personal development results may not be measured in minutes, or even days, but in weeks or months or years. So bring a good book, put your feet up and enjoy the process.

2. There’s lots of poking around between teeth

I’ve gone to the dentist for a simple cleaning, let the dentist poke around in my mouth for a while, then walked out 2 hours later with two cavities filled, a root canal, a follow-up appointment for more work, and a bill that weighed more than me!

But that’s often what poking around does. As with teeth and mouths, so with psyches and character. The more we look, the more emotional plaque and decay we find in our lives.

But don’t be alarmed by what you discover for all the poking. Just be glad you have lots of opportunities for personal growth. Just like a dentist finding a cavity you didn’t know you had, when we discover emotional or character issues we didn’t know about the day before, we empower ourselves to correct them before they get stuck deep in the root and tissue of our lives.

3. Relief comes after the pain

When we go to the dentist with a throbbing ache in our sweet tooth, the dentist is quick to make us very uncomfortable. It often hurts as she pinches and pushes, pokes, picks and prods.

But when she’s done, it always feels better (at least once the swelling goes down). Those who stay away for fear of the poking and prodding eventually make an appointment with much bigger dental problems.

Good hygiene comes at the other side of regular dental pinches. Good character also comes at the far end of pokes at our moral fiber. And happiness after the sting of emotionally difficult trials, just as good health follows the ache of exhaustion, sore muscles and the “pain” of self-discipline.

4. Sometimes root canals and extraction are needed

Isn’t it strange how we can experience pain without always recognizing its cause? All we know is that it hurts. Just as a dentist often finds the problem below the gum line in a tooth that has been rotting from the inside out, infecting the very roots of our teeth, we can also have problems festering below the surface of our pasts, infecting the roots and bone matter of our lives.  

Sometimes the rot is in the form of boiling hatred or knee-jerk judgments or attitudinal tumors or mental plaque or character decay.

At other times, we need to extract a friendship or a habit or some behavior from our lives that undermines our dreams or values. Such extractions require the insight to recognize the needed change, the courage to act and determination to follow through.

5. Fluoride Treatments are better than root canals

Just as fluoride treatments are preventive, meant to strengthen teeth against future cavities, so daily prayer and meditation, daily acts of kindness and service and reading regularly from scripture and other works of wisdom and inspiration are preventive measures against the emotional and spiritual viruses that plague too many unhappy lives.

But just as it’s easy to employ preventive measures like dental floss and mouth wash and fluoride treatments, it’s also easy not to.

When we fail to act preemptively to guard against moral and emotional viruses, we open ourselves to their malignant influence and, in the end, to more drastic corrective measure later.

Afterthoughts

No one I know likes going to the dentist. We dread the prospect, so some of us wait too long between appointments or just don’t go at all. But we usually pay a steep price.

The result of this failure can be receding gum lines, bad breath, discolored teeth, few friends, and all kinds of dental problems with hard-to-pronounce names and hard-to-pay bills.

The difference between those who make regular visits and those who don’t is the difference between those who have very few aching teeth or root canals or other dental problems and those who spend too much of their time and means sitting in dental chairs waiting for dentists to do very expensive things in their mouths.

So as we look into the mirror of our own lives and poke around in our open souls, resist the urge to run at the first sign of blood and keep poking around at the raw parts.

Then do to your life what dentists do to your teeth. Fix what needs fixing. Correct what needs correcting. Then offer yourself some very sound advice to keep flossing between teeth.

In the end, you’ll be the happier for it.

Your Turn!

• Convinced? Is personal development something similar to going to the dentist?
• What other ways is it similar?
• Or what else is it more like?
• Let us know what resonated with you in the comments below!

And please Share this post on Facebook and Tweet it or otherwise get the word out if you liked what I had to say.

Photo by HerryLawford

“Over every mountain there is a path, although it may not be seen from the valley.” ~Theodore Roethke

Note: This is a guest post from fellow blogger, Vlad Dolezal.

Lately, I’ve seen an unusually high amount of posts in the blogosphere extolling “being happy with what you have”. They’ve been springing up like mushrooms after a mushroom soup factory explosion.

Unfortunately, most authors leave out crucial details. Like the fact that being fully content with your current situation for an extended period of time is utter nonsense.

A Challenge

After seeing a guest post touching on this topic here on M2bH a few weeks back, I decided to get in touch with Ken to see if he’d let me share my contrarian perspective on this popular topic. Being the curious, open-minded guy that he is, he agreed—so today, I’d like to share why chasing after being fully content in your situation in life is a fool’s dream.

Now, before you grab your pitchfork and run straight to the comment section to tell me that my head is full of bird feed, let me stop you.

First, read a bit below to see what I’m going on about. Only then leave a comment telling me how wrong I am, alright?

The “Be-Happy-with-what-You-Have” Movement

I’m sure you’ve met a person or two who are always unhappy with what they have, always chasing after happiness “out there”. People who complete the statement, “I’ll be happy when…” with material achievements, or status symbols.

Maybe you’ve even been that person.

In response to those people, there sprung up a movement of people promoting the idea that you can be happy with what you have.

Happiness is a state of mind, not a certain amount of possessions or awards.

That’s a great thing. If you’re the sort of person who’s been chasing “I’ll be happy when…” kinds of goals, that’s exactly what you need to hear. If you’re not happy with what you have right now, having more won’t magically make you happy (unless you’re currently starving).

But some authors take this too far. They claim that you can choose happiness in whatever situation you find yourself, and you shouldn’t be looking to make changes.

So you get it in your head that you should be able to be completely content in your current situation. You do gratitude exercises, and meditation, and feel truly happy with what you have for a bit.

Being Human

But then restlessness sets in. You feel like this is not quite it. Your passion for life starts to dip, and you feel the need to chase after some goals. To make changes.

Then you beat yourself up about it, because clearly you haven’t quite got the hang of being happy with what you have.

Don’t. It doesn’t mean you’re a silly westerner with an untamed monkey mind. It means that you’re a wonderful, amazing kind of creature – a human. A completely normal human, exactly as you should be.

It’s part of being human to be unable to be happy in any one static situation for too long.

Let me explain.

Passion in the Climb

There lives a rock-climbing instructor in the UK, named Mal, who has an interesting way of testing applicants for his advanced rock-climbing class.

He has them climb a mountain where, about two thirds of the way up, there’s an overhang. From below, it looks like the top of the mountain, but once you climb over it, you see a big chunk of the mountain still towering over you.

And Mal’s way of testing applicants is simply hiding behind a rock at the overhang and watching the climbers’ expression when they scale the overhang.

Many applicants look disappointed or annoyed that they’re not at the top yet. Mal politely declines these people the entry to his advanced class.

But some applicants… when they scale the overhang and see the mountain looming over them, their eyes light up with excitement at the prospect of more climbing!

Mal welcomes these applicants with open arms.

You will never become an advanced rock-climber if you’re only doing it to reach the top and hate the climbing itself. Real rock-climbers love climbing. A mountain top is merely a goal that gives them focus and challenge.

I love Mal’s example, because it’s such a great metaphor for life itself.

A fulfilling life isn’t static. You don’t just reach the top of a mountain and then sit there happily ever after without moving. You get restless, and itch to climb more.

A fulfilling life is just like that. Dynamic. Striving after worthy goals. Defeating challenges. Growing in the process.

How Do You Define Being Alive?

In fact, it comes to the very definition of life. Biologists define being alive as deliberately impacting your environment.

That’s the difference between a rock and a tree. A rock simply lies there, fully content with its situation. A tree, on the other hand, grows roots, and gathers nutrients, and combines them with carbon from the air to grow a lush green canopy.

If you ever reached a situation where you were completely content with everything you had, and had no more outstanding goals and desires… you’d be dead. As long as you’re alive, that will never happen.

You have a natural, deeply ingrained drive to strive for goals, and impact your surroundings. That’s what makes you truly happy, truly alive.

Even meditation gurus who seem to spend their days sitting around quietly are like that. They’ve just taken their goal-seeking and turned it inwards, constantly perfecting and refining their mental arts.

Which brings us to a fun twist on this “being happy with what you have” idea.

“Being Happy” vs. “Striving for Goals”

So, hoping that you will finally reach happiness, if only you hit that one last goal … is clearly not the answer.

But being fully content with your life isn’t the answer either. You get restless and your passion for life drains.

So what is the answer?

The Joy of Climbing

Just like advanced rock-climbers, they don’t climb to reach the top. They climb for the pure, simple joy of the climb itself.

You won’t find happiness at the end of a rainbow either, or reaching a certain salary or finding a partner to share your life with. These won’t magically make you happy.

Instead, embrace the process of striving.

In my humble opinion, the search for happiness comes down to these steps:

• Accept your current situation. You got here by making what you thought were the best decisions at the time. Give yourself a pat on the back—you’ve grown and learned from all your decisions, both good and bad. It’s okay for you to be exactly where you are.
• Find a Worthy Goal to strive for. Something that aligns with your values, something that makes your heart sing with joy, a goal that makes you weep when you think of it.
• Embrace the process of striving for that goal, step by step. That’s where true happiness lies—in striving to make the world a better, happier place through your actions.

Embrace the striving.

Live.

YOUR TURN …

• What do you think?
• On which side of the debate do you fall?
• Or are you somewhere in the middle?
• We would love to read your thoughts in the comments!

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To find your own Worthy Goal that makes your heart sing, check out Vlad’s e-book How to Find Your Life Purpose (completely free, you don’t even have to leave your e-mail address!). Or if you already have a worthy goal, but are having trouble taking action on it, how about making a personal development plan? Or check out Vlad’s twitter. Or blog. Go wild.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Photo by Infinitely Curious & bortescristian

“You don’t have to wait for something to come along, to land in your lap, to make itself known. You can create something from scratch, just the way you want it, from your own passionate imaginings.”  ~Barrie Davenport

Are you doing what you love to do? Do you wake up in the morning excited about the prospect of getting back to what fills your heart and moves you?

Or is life a grind?

Do you dread Mondays and thank God when it’s finally Friday? Are you trapped in a life that seems to have ambushed you? Do you daydream of a different life? Of someone else’s life?

Or maybe you’re feeling like there’s something missing, like your life is the equivalent of drinking watered-down milk at room temperature?

Passion Requires Action

What would you say (and more importantly, what would you DO) if I told you that you could start living a life of deep passion, doing what you love and loving what you do?

Would you be interested to know how?

Would you take action on it?

“We must act out passion before we can feel it.” ~Jean-Paul Sartre

Would you start to fill your life with more passion and purpose and meaning? Keep in mind that passion is not the product of wishing; it’s the product of doing.

That’s what divides the world, you know. There are those who wish and dream and never take their lives out of park.

Then there are those who figure out what they want, shift into gear and hit the gas.

Deep down, who do you yearn to be?

The Sadness of an Unlit Candle

Candles are meant to be lit. They are created for the very purpose of giving light. Decorative candles that sit on shelves gathering dust, never doing what candles were meant to do, are a sad sight to me.

They remind me of people who place themselves on shelves and never light the wick of their own lives. A person’s life is meant to be lit too, filling life with light like candles fill rooms.

What is the flame in your life? Is it lit? Is there light and heat? Or has the wick of passion been allowed to go out?

“There is no passion to be found playing small – in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.” ~Nelson Mandela

Look at passion as though it were a living, breathing thing. If you feed it, it will grow and thrive and expand, filling your life with joy and happiness. If you don’t, it will eventually do what all living things do when they are not fed.

The saddest thing to me is to meet a musician who no longer plays music or a poet who has never written a poem or a dancer who never signed up for a class or put on dance shoes or walked onto a stage.

Unmet and undiscovered passions are flames that are never lit and happiness that is never realized.

The Passion of Purpose

So stop living life in neutral and start living with your foot on the gas. It doesn’t have to be pushed to the floor, just enough to move you forward and get your blood pumping a bit.

Light the flame of purposeful living. Don’t wait. Start filling your life with whatever meaning and passion it lacks.

Every day you don’t, you delay doing what you were created to do.

If you don’t know what excites you, that’s fine. Experiment! Pick something up and give it a try (artistic, expressive, athletic, entrepreneurial, technical, mechanic, spiritual, moral, developmental, whatever). If it doesn’t float your boat, set it down and try something else. If that doesn’t, try again.

“When you have a sense that your passion has meaning and impacts others in a positive way, it will energize and fulfill you more than you could ever expect.” ~Barrie Davenport

Choosing to fill your life with what makes your heart beat will transform it. You will be filled with more energy and love and excitement. You will be driven to do and create and discover. You will feel the warm blood of purpose course through your veins, adding meaning and value to your life. You will be happier, more fulfilled, more in love with the life you lead.

Does the prospect of a more passion-filled life excite you? Enough to do something about it?

3 Steps to a Passionate, Purpose-filled Life

1. Discover what makes you tick

So, what floats your boat? If you know, you know. But if you don’t, you may find yourself living in the shadow of relentless sameness, spinning wheels, going nowhere, unfulfilled, unexcited, frustrated, bored.

If that’s the case, start exploring possibilities. Try new things. Talk to new people about what they love. Read. Learn. Discover. Make a list of interests or even potential interests and see if something stands out. As you expose yourself to opportunities and look into what’s out there, dive head first into what moves you.

“Finding and living your passion isn’t a linear process. Sometimes you have to test and try various things before you find what really makes your heart sing.” ~ Barrie Davenport

It might be dance. It could be music. Perhaps it’s business or sales or working with your hands or movie production or foster care or graphic design or marketing or acting or politics or blogging or martial arts or the cause of happiness.

You’ll never know what gets you up and out of bed in the morning until you explore your possibilities.

I’ve tried sports, guitar and piano. I’ve worked with abused children, trained in three different martial arts and created two board games. I’ve tried my hand at writing a novel, drafting post cards, and teaching myself to paint with water colors so I could write and illustrate a children’s book. I’ve read over a thousand books on history, philosophy, religion, psychology, sociology, biography, politics, government, economics, management, leadership, happiness and other self-help topics. I’ve traveled and served and have made my life a grand experiment. I started teaching high school a decade ago.

Some of these experiments were, well, less than successful. Others have paid the bills. Some I’ve liked and others loved.

Then I stumbled onto blogging. And I knew I had found my passion. I love to write. And to write about topics that truly matter in ways that helps others fills me with a deep kind of satisfaction. I’ve enjoyed so much of my life, but now have something that drives me, that surges through me, that excites me. My whole life led me here. Without the trials and errors, and the attitude that produced them, there’s no way I would have ever attempted blogging.

2. Make a date with what you love to do

Make time for doing what moves you. It’s so easy to get caught up in the daily grind of doing all the things that have to get done, living paycheck to paycheck, always running, always behind, never really enjoying life, never having time to pursue your passion.

So schedule it! Calendar in park days, play dates, concerts, field trips to nature centers and how-to workshops and seminars. Schedule time to practice the flute or climb a mountain or paint or write or sing. Even if it’s only a few minutes here and there. Life is lived in the moments, so fill them with passion and your life will be more passionate.

You don’t have to get paid for it. You just have to do it. Set aside time when phones are turned off and email is ignored and purpose is fulfilled. Then as circumstances allow, stretch the moments.

3. Get help

Sometimes we have seemingly insurmountable obstacles that get in the way of pursuing new ideas and exploring possibilities. We tell ourselves it won’t work or that we wouldn’t be able to make it work even if in theory it otherwise would. We tell ourselves we’re too busy or it’s too expensive or we’re too old or too sick or lazy or tired or inadequate.

We fear taking that essential step and so we leave our lives unexplored, undiscovered, uncreated. We believe the lies we tell ourselves and so we stay in the shadow of our own lives. We leave the wick unlit. The purpose unsought. Passion unknown.

But that’s not what we’re all about. That’s not what life was created for. That’s not the life you were meant to live.

Sometimes we just need a good kick start. If that’s all you need to take a step toward the unmet passions of your life, that’s awesome! Go get to the work of building a life you’re deeply happy about living.

But if you need more–a push, some direction, help, a community, a mentor and coach, try my friend Barrie Davenport whose life work is helping people find and live their passions.

It can change your life in unbelievable ways.

Passionately.

And forever.

YOUR TURN!

What’s your passion? Have you found something (several things?) that gets you excited about life? How did you discover it? How are you using it?

If you liked this post, please share it!

Photo by mikebaird and JR Guillaumin

“It’s fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.”  ~Bill Gates

Just as there are specific actions we can take and attitudes we can harbor to increase the likelihood of a successful life (in whatever aspect of life we’re seeking it), on the flip side, there are specific actions and attitudes that can increase the likelihood of failure as well.

Below are some of those steps and attitudes that can lead to abject failure in life. The point is, of course, to know ahead of time exactly where the cow dung in the field is to avoid stepping in it.

21 Easy Steps to Abject Failure (or 21 attitudinal dung hills to avoid for a better life)

1. Criticize instead of fix

Fixing problems is hard work. Even suggesting solutions takes some effort. Instead, just criticize and complain your way up the corporate ladder or into a loving relationship or deep into a life of happiness. Sure seems like it would work!

2. Wish instead of do

Doing stuff is exhausting. Much better to passively wish for success. Wish for a great job. Or for a happy, loving family. But never tire yourself in actually creating such things.

3. Run when you should walk

When you’re just too tired and worn out, be sure to keep pushing without break or reprieve. I’m sure it won’t catch up to you! Besides, I read somewhere that we can get so much more done when the body and mind are exhausted. So burn the candle at both ends and watch success rain down upon you … or go up like a puff of smoke … or something like that.

4. Walk when you should run

When a goal is in sight, slow down. Be average. Stroll. Never roll up your sleeves and prove yourself a sucker. Get away with doing as little as possible and never more than anyone else. That just wouldn’t be fair. One way to define success is to only do what you need to do to not get fired. That’s what I’ve heard, anyway.

5. Act without a plan

Close your eyes, keep your head down and run like crazy! Of course you won’t crash or fall down a hole. So set no goals and aim nowhere. Just do. Think it through later. After all, I’m sure there are plenty of great structures that were built without blueprints! It’s possible.

6. Stick to a plan religiously

Never bend. Don’t reconsider. Refuse to be flexible. Keep so focused on a straight line of action that you never notice new developments or opportunities or better ideas. I bet there aren’t any new ones worth mentioning left in the world anyway!

7. Act before thinking

Just say and do whatever comes to mind. No need for social filters or values or thoughtfulness or the consideration of others. So what if the reputation of the company or the family or your own is on the line. Reputations don’t matter much, at least not when compared to your right to do what you feel the impulse to do. So just do it and watch the beauty that is your life unfold and friends flock and respect deepen.

8. Don’t set aside time to learn

You’re educationwas completed the moment you graduated. So why study now? No way! You earned the right to never learn anything new again. So keep the TV on and stay as far away as you can from a classroom, the book store or library. (and whatever you do, don’t click on this link to Audible or this one to the Great Courses to take the next step in your education. I mean come one, that would just be a waste of time!)

9. Don’t question the status quo

Take orders and run with them without question. Read a generic how-to manual and go for it. Don’t waste your time finding out if there are other ways of doing things that would work better. Don’t rock the boat. Float in calm waters. Don’t challenge or explore or try out alternative ways of doing things to the status quo. I’m sure doing the same things you’ve always done in the same way you’ve always done them will eventually produce different results than what they’ve always produced!

10. Lose sight of where you want to go

Why take the time to decide where you want to go when there is so much to do right now without spending valuable time determining what’s most important to you? I’m sure everything will work out and you’ll just love where you end up. Besides, values are such malleable things. So just massage your values to the shape of your actions … and never the other way around.

11. Give up when things get tough

Why keep pushing against a headwind? Why climb when you can just sit down and bunker in where you are? If you get hit, go home! If you get pushed, run away. If it get’s difficult, leave. Stamina, perseverance and commitment are overrated things anyway!

12. Control, backseat drive and micromanage

People can’t be trusted to do what needs to be done, so do it all. Badger those few people you give insignificant tasks to do until they do them precisely as you want them done just to get you out of their hair. I’m sure a strong team spirit, improvement, expertise and passion for the work is created this way!

13. Never build a team

Pit one group against another, one family member against another, neighbor against neighbor. Build rivalries and contention. Be a know-it-all. Never let your guard down. Ostracize and denigrate and never put time into building a culture of mutual respect and meaning. Don’t worry, everyone will come together in a pinch. No, really.

14. Be duplicitous

If a lie will make you a little more money, why not bend the truth? Make honesty a matter of expediency. Stretch things so far they never quite fall back to shape. A few coins now, after all, are much better than what you could get in the long-run with trust and trustworthiness. Duh!

15. Allow home to fall into emotional disarray

Get so tunnel-visioned that you forget to pay attention to your family. See them as an obstacle to your real goals and make them feel like they are in the way of you doing what you really love. What use is a family when there’s real work to get done anyway? Besides, you can always pick up the emotional pieces later once you make it big. Don’t worry, they’ll understand. And I’m sure they’ll stick around.

16. Worry instead of act

Since every step you take can end in disaster and abject failure, it’s safest to do nothing to ensure you’ll never fall on your face and bruise your ego. After all, it’s much better to never succeed by not trying than to try and fail, right?

17. Put off doing tasks you don’t like

Just because successful people pay attention to detail and do what needs to be done even if they don’t like doing it, doesn’t mean you have to! So don’t make those calls. Don’t know your costs. Don’t do the distasteful parts of excellence. I’m sure they’ll get done on their own by someone.

18. Do the trivial first

Get bogged down in the details. Get caught in the thick of small things. Do so much of the meaningless that there’s little time left at the end of the day to do what’s more meaningful.

19. Wait for the perfect time

You don’t want to start something too soon. As a matter of fact, keep waiting until circumstances are just right. Pause at the edge and wait. I’m sure things will clear up and work out just fine. And I’m sure no one else will jump ahead of you in line.

20. Make long-run sacrifices for short-term gains

Cut corners to cut costs and skimp on customer service to show immediate improvements on the bottom line. Never invest in long-term results. Only put money where it will show an immediate return. Long-run planning is for fools!

21. Think profits, not people

Money is all that matters, right? If you can squeeze an extra sale out of a customer with a little hard selling, go for it! You never know when or if they will ever come back, so get every dime you can get from them before they leave the store. Your product wouldn’t serve their needs? Don’t let them know and emphasize everything else about the product that’s attractive. They’ll never know … or spread the word. And you’ll feel just great about yourself with a few coins in your pocket as well. After all, everyone’s character has a price at which it can be bought and what you sold yours for is certainly worth it, right?

Afterthoughts

So now you have a decent little map to most of the attitudinal dung hidden in the fields of life. Step in them too often and you’ll likely be scraping off the stink for some significant amount of time. And life will feel flat, adrift, lifeless, unsuccessful. Stop doing them and you just may have to endure a life well lived, success achieved and happiness attained.

Your Thoughts …

Did I leave anything off the list? What would you have added? What do you think about the attitudinal dunghills I’ve included?

Photos by Niklas Hellerstedt, Daniel Milford Flathagen, aaron.bihari, doug_wertman

“Edit your life frequently and ruthlessly. It’s your masterpiece after all.” ~Nathan W. Morris

I have a confession to make. I don’t live a minimalist life of decluttered simplicity. I have too much unused stuff packed in too many boxes stacked on too many shelves. And while I could do better in this respect, there are other cluttered parts of our lives in need of some spring-cleaning as well.

Too many of us suffer from our own cluttered emotional closets stuffed with messy habits of thought and crowded feelings we’ve clung to for far too long.

Perhaps it’s time we practiced a little emotional minimalism as well.

Now I want to make sure I’m very clear here. By “emotional minimalism” I’m not suggesting a life of emotional constipation, stifling feelings or beating ourselves up for feeling a bit sad or mad.

Rather, this is a call to do away with emotional clutter—all the junk we no longer want or use but sits in hearts gathering dust and causing problems.

5 Ways to Live an Uncluttered Emotional Life
(or emotional minimalism 101)

1. Minimize Anger

We have a bookshelf in the study with too many picture frames and plaques and other nick knacks and doodads on it. The result is lots of accumulated dust in inconvenient-to-clean places. Too much stuff gets in the way and too little dusting is done as a result.

Our anger can be like that as well. Our hearts get stuffed with too many emotional doohickeys that get increasingly difficult to clean out. Anger compounds upon anger and soon tiny infractions start to seem bigger and darker and more difficult to shrug off.

If anger has been getting in the way of your happiness or your relationships, it’s time to do something about it.

The binding habit of anger can be a powerful habit to break though. But you can start by refusing to blame others for your mood any longer. Stop assuming evil intent in others’ misplaced word, look or tone. Stop demanding perfection and just allow people to just be people, as flawed as we all are, without taking those flaws as personal insult and injury.

Let your tight grip on life loosen up enough to allow it to unfold without judgment. And while you’re loosening your grip, let anger slip out of your hand as well, and evaporate into a new attitude of compassion and patience.

2. Minimize Envy

Of all the spaces in my home, my garage is the most cluttered. We have unopened boxes stacked on metal shelving from 10 years ago when we first moved to our current home. I don’t even know what’s in them anymore.

The most pressing issue is a problem with available space. The more of the completely useless stuff we keep in the garage, the more of the periodically useful stuff has to be kept inside.

Envy can be just like that. It clutters hearts and dirties relationships until there is no more room for real love.

It is a form of selfishness and greed turned jealous with age. In other words, it’s a desire to get, not so much by getting, but by either taking what someone else has or taking pleasure in seeing theirs fall apart.

Envy rests on assumptions of life as a zero-sum game, that one person’s fortune means there’s less treasure available for me. Besides that kind of thinking being untrue, it is also self-sabotaging.

Instead, be happy for others good fortune. Take yourself out of the equation. Step into their shoes and let your heart open to them. Allow the cleansing quality of love to move through you as it passes to others. Love, after all, is the universal antidote to envy.

3. Minimize Grudges

Our youngest is six years old and we’re not having anymore kids. And yet it’s difficult to let go of his baby stuff. We have old baby clothes and his crib and toys he no longer plays with in the garage. They fill boxes, crates and bags on shelves.

So why do we keep it all? In part they are physical representations of precious memories. My wife worries that our memories will fade when the things representing them are no longer around to see and remind us.

Aren’t we like that too when it comes to holding onto grudges? We get hurt and hold onto the pain for fear of forgetting, and thereby becoming vulnerable to getting hurt again.

But that’s no way to live. Living life looking in the rear-view mirror keeps you standing still or bumping into all the obstacles along the path in front of you.

Instead, toss out the bottled-up hatred. Let go of the need to punish and just open your heart and forgive. Unplug the drains of hurt. And take each moment as a moment unto itself, free of roots buried in the past or future.

4. Minimize Fear

We have a sleeping bag, a few boots and gloves and other miscellaneous camping equipment in the back of my car. The thing is, the camping trip we packed for was over a year ago.

And so here I am hauling camping equipment around in my car wherever I go. There’s a lesson here because sometimes we take emotional clutter where it’s not needed as well. Fear is one such piece of junk we often haul around unnecessarily.

You can’t completely eliminate fear and probably shouldn’t. It’s a handy device to have when contemplating a casual swim in shark-infested waters. Recklessness, after all, is the total absence of fear, not the presence of courage. But don’t let fear control you. Courage is taking right action in spite of being afraid. Still, the intensity of fear can and often should be reduced in those who become overwhelmed with anxiety over the object of their fears. This is particularly true when those fears are not rational.

Fearing a lion, for instance, while strolling through the Serengeti alone, munching on some fried chicken, can be a rational fear. Fearing a lion in Central Park is not. Fearing shark attack while splashing around the Great Barrier Reef is rational. Fearing shark attack while swimming at night in the backyard pool is not.

As you buckle down and move forward despite your fears, you will usually come to realize the fear itself was much larger than the reality of it.

5. Minimize Pessimism

I don’t know how many trash bags of old clothes we’ve given to charity over the years. We don’t ask for anything in return. We simply give it away. That’s a strategy we can use for our habits of negative thinking too. Give it all away. Don’t hold on to it for another moment. Don’t ask for proof that things will work out or that things will turn out better than you may suspect. Just donate them. Leave them at the doorstep and resolutely walk the other way.

Pessimists have the advantage of always being right (at least in their own minds). Why? Because they ignore the 1,000 times things turned out pretty good and declare victory once something bad happens that their optimist counterparts failed to predict.

But they also push people away and damage relationships. They corrupt happiness and cripple growth and opportunity and excellence and success.

So bundle up your negative thinking and ship off the ugly package of self-defeat and surrender to the far away land of No More.

Afterthoughts

We all come with baggage. That just makes us human. The biggest problem is when we keep adding more junk to our already over-stuffed emotional bags, never throwing anything out, never letting anything go, holding on to every new insult, hurt feeling and angry thought.

There are steps we can take to clear the emotional clutter and live happier, freer, more peaceful lives. I hope I’ve introduced some of those steps to you here, or at least inspired you to look for your own steps to clear the clutter that is still acting as a drag on your happiness

Spring is upon us, so go clean out a closet or something. But while you’re at it, unpack a heavy heart as well. That’s some spring cleaning you’ll be happy you performed this year.

YOUR TURN …

• How do you do your emotional spring cleaning?
• What emotional dust and debris did I leave off the list?
• We would love to read your thoughts in the comments below!

Photo by surprise truck, Paul L Dineen & tylertate