Tips, advice, and reflections on living your best life
Professor Srikumar Rao, creator of popular graduate course Creativity and Personal Mastery, says that anything you think you can get to make you happy is something you also can “unget.” His view is that happiness is hard-wired into us and therefore there is nothing we need to get, do or be to be happy.
Listen to what he has to say. Then share your reactions.
People who are having difficulty reaching goals labor under one big misconception. They believe that successful people move in one straight line from the inception of an idea to success.
On the contrary, successful people have strong beliefs that get them started, help them face difficulties and keep them going until they reach their goals.
Here are five of those beliefs.
1. I am worthy of success and deserve the best.
Successful people are able to go after what they want in life because they believe they deserve it. Your subconscious believes whatever you program into it and helps you get what you want. Trying to go after a goal you don’t believe you deserve is like driving west in an effort to go east.
2. I believe in my ability to handle whatever comes up.
Problems, adversities and challenges come up in everyone’s life. It is the belief that you can figure out a solution that is important.
3. There is a lesson I can learn from this failure
Many believe that failures are lessons designed to help us. When things don’t go your way, it’s helpful to reflect on what can use from the experience for the future.
4. I am responsible for my own life.
While we all can benefit from help from friends, colleagues and relatives, we must recognize that it’s the choices we make that create the lives we want. Choosing what advice and paths to take is the most important of all.
5. I believe the sun will come out tomorrow.
This line from the musical Annie expresses how positive people feel. No matter what hard times they encounter, they believe that by continuing to move toward their goals, they will be successful.
Looking over dangerous cliff by jazzmanna from flickr
A slow death comes for those who don’t revolt when they’re unhappy in their work or in love. Who don’t risk the certain for the uncertain in order to follow a dream. Who don’t allow themselves, at least once in their life, to disregard sensible advice. –Pablo Neruda
Taking sensible advice is what most of us were raised to do.
• Finish your dinner
• Get a good job
• Don’t talk to strangers
• Be satisfied
• Don’t travel abroad, it’s not safe
Although good advice is well-intentioned, following it does not always lead to personal happiness.
• Finishing your dinner can lead to overeating, heartburn and obesity.
• Getting a good job that bores and stresses does not build character, just more upset.
• As for strangers, isn’t everyone except your mother a stranger until you meet them?
• Being satisfied would bring an abrupt halt to invention.
• It’s not safe to get on the freeway either, but we must do it to get where we’re going
When your heart and mind are longing to go in a new direction, you will experience some discomfort, fear and even hesitation. After all, when entering new territory we can expect to find the terrain and language unfamiliar. But when you feel that strong pull toward a new idea, creation or endeavor that makes you tingle with excitement, disregard sensible advice. It’s NOT doing what you love that you will later regret.
Click the musical note at the lower right if you wish to enjoy the music along with the pictures.
When things are rough in your life there is a great temptation to stick your head in the sand practicing big-time denial.
I caution you not to do that because a very vulnerable part of your body is exposed, inviting even more hardship. If you take your head out of the sand, you’ll not only get air and be able to breathe, but you will be able to see solutions as they appear.
I speak from experience.
When I returned to graduate school to take advantage of a grant I was required to go to school full time. That meant leaving my full-time junior high teaching job. (I had just gotten a raise too.) I applied for a leave but the school district was unwilling to approve it, so I retired.
At the time we had two daughters, 5 and 2 in private school. My husband’s salary would become our full support. We knew we were taking a risk going from two salaries to one. In spite of a pile of bills we decided I couldn’t afford to miss this opportunity to earn my Ph.D. from the largess of grant. So, I enrolled at USC and began my studies.
The grant paid my tuition, gave a generous monthly book allowance and provided a starting monthly stipend of $250. We kept our girls in a private Montessori school to the tune of $100 each per month and spent the remaining $50 on gas for one of our two cars.
During the four years it took me to finish school, I had a third child, my son (on purpose,) and experienced many financial ups and downs. Every time it seemed that we had made it through another month, something seemed to break down.
First, was the second car, so we had to share a car. In Los Angeles that was doable when my husband’s job was nearby. I could drop him at work and the girls at school on my way to classes. But when his job transferred him to Long Beach, the opposite direction from where the rest of us were going everyday, somebody would have to take the bus.
No more carpooling. We decided he would drop the girls off and drive to work then pick them up afterwards. We were blessed to have a babysitter who came to my house to keep our young son. By now the granting institution had increased my monthly stipend to $450. Now I could pay the babysitter.
I would catch the bus to and from school.
The second major break down occurred when we had exactly $115 left in our checking account after paying all our bills. This was in the mid-70’s so I was pretty happy with this balance.
It almost seemed on cue that the water heater went from a leak to a flood. The cost to replace it: $115.
I had to laugh at this even then and moreso now.
I felt like Job in the Bible.
One thing that kept us going was the realization that we were making this sacrifice for a very important goal: completing my doctorate.
Another thing that sustained us was our strong faith in God. During this time our spiritual muscles strengthened as we dealt with other tough challenges while taking good care of our kids.
We discovered that facing our problems head on enabled us to see solutions, not always perfect ones, but perfectly good for the time.
In our once overflowing refrigerator, freezer and kitchen cabinets, we had just the basics. My mother and babysitter feared that we were starving, but we weren’t. My oldest daughter jokes to this day that I made every recipe on the Biscuit box. She was right. With a little syrup or margarine or ground beef and cheese we could have a meal. Nobody went hungry. Nothing was wasted.
We became so frugal that after I finished my degree and took a university position, my kids didn’t believe me during a trip to the grocery store when I told them they could choose a name brand cereal.
Many people are either facing tough times or anticipating tough times. Keeping your head in the sand will not change the problems. As a matter of fact, delay usually just makes things worst.
Coming up for air will give you clarity and enable you to see solutions.
So, if you’re guilty of hiding your head during hard times and exposing your rear, get your head out of the sand now. Better times await you.
(originally posted 3-31-09)
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