The Daily Mind

Daily Steps To Mindful Living

self-improvement

Boost your mind, body and spirit

Body, Inspiration, Meditation, Mind, Personal Growth, Spirit

Sometimes the pressures of life can take their toll on our minds and bodies, leaving us exhausted, depressed and lacking in energy. Here’s how to give your mind, body and spirit a lift.

Mind
Make sure you start every day on a positive note. Instead of reading the papers or watching the news which, let’s face it, generally leaves you feeling pretty miserable, read a book that inspires you instead. You can catch up on the news later in the day, but make sure the first thing you read leaves you feeling uplifted.

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Originally posted on February 17, 2012 @ 10:33 am

Is there a link between our emotions and physical pain?

Mental Health, Mind

When we think about pain, it is generally to do with the physical causes – such as an injury caused through a fall, or a headache caused by staring at a computer for too long. But how often do we consider the fact that there could be an emotional reason for our ailments?

There is a growing belief among complementary therapists that our emotional state can often hold the key to the pains or illnesses we suffer from, and this is a topic I’m going to explore in this blog post. [Read more…] about Is there a link between our emotions and physical pain?

Originally posted on January 28, 2012 @ 8:14 pm

How to use the power of positive affirmations

Inspiration, Mental Health, Mind, Personal Growth, Spirit

Since recently coming back from my travels around south east Asia, I’ve been feeling a bit unfocused and unsure of what the future holds. In order to tackle this, I’ve started practising positive affirmations; something I’ve always found useful in focusing my mind and combating any negative thoughts that creep in. So, for this blog post, I’m going to talk about affirmations: what are they, why should we practise them and how can they help us?

A thinking Man
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Originally posted on January 18, 2012 @ 11:40 am

Be your own NLP master

Personal Growth, Spirit

I’m a big fan of NLP – or neuro linguistic programming – so I thought I’d devote this particular blog post to some of my favourite NLP techniques.

NLP is a personal development system based on an understanding of how the mind works – how people use thoughts, feelings, words and actions – and using this understanding to enhance our potential. Life’s everyday challenges can often produce stress, anxiety or anger if we are unable to find the right strategies to deal with them, so this is where NLP can come in handy.


Creative Commons License photo credit: aithom2

Here are some things NLP can help with:

  • Releasing negative emotions such as anger, depression, anxiety, sadness, fear, hurt and guilt.
  • Helping people who feel stuck in their careers or relationships, or those who are looking to change direction in their life.
  • Boosting confidence and self belief in all areas of life.
  • Demonstrating how to focus on what you want and feeling good, rather than on what you don’t want and feeling bad.
  • Providing effective listening and communication skills to improve relationships with colleagues, family, partners, and most of all yourself.

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Originally posted on December 27, 2011 @ 6:49 am

How to streamline your life

Life, Personal Growth

If you’re anything like me, you’ll find yourself constantly rushing around trying to fit lots of things into the day and never quite feeling that there’s enough time. I think the key here is time management – something that doesn’t come easily to me, I must admit – so that’s why for this blog I’ve decided to speak to a number of health experts to get some tips. I’m going to take a look at how to manage your work life better so that you feel less stressed, and I’m also going to look at how to fit more time in your day for fitness, a healthy diet and meditation.

Work

I like to think that I’m pretty organised, but I do sometimes get overwhelmed at work when I’ve got lots of things to do at once. I asked business coach Catherine Billam for some advice on how to be better at multi-tasking and, interestingly, she claims that it’s “a very inefficient way of using the brain.” She adds: “Doing two tasks at once can reduce your performance by up to 50 per cent, and constant emailing or text messaging reduces intelligence by an average of 10 points on an IQ test.” Yikes! That puts my IQ down by several numbers.

Instead of trying to juggle lots of tasks, Catherine advises cutting your day into chunks and focusing on one type of activity at a time. “Have separate chunks of time for admin, phone calls, meetings, emails, dealing with today’s emergencies, planning, creative thinking and writing,” she says.

Catherine also suggests being clever in the way that you plan your day. “Do the most difficult tasks when you have the most energy and the routine tasks when you have the least energy,” she says.

“Most people are at their brightest early in the morning, so do your hardest creative tasks and decision-making then. If dealing with admin or emails is routine, do that when you have less energy. Most people have a dip in the middle of the afternoon. Do routine tasks then.” I’ve always wondered what to do during the dreaded 3pm slump – now I know!

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Originally posted on October 21, 2011 @ 10:51 am

The Excuses Culture: Why We Protect Ourselves With Excuses

Inspiration, Personal Growth, Spirit

Power Nap
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He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else. – Benjamin Franklin

When was the last time you made a resolve to achieve something, set a deadline and then achieved it? Can you even remember the last time? I’m struggling. And the reason I am struggling to remember such a time is because of excuses. I make them for everything; consciously and unconsciously. Without noticing it, excuses have become a habit that I am struggling to shake.

In this post I want to talk about the excuses culture that we have develop within ourselves and why we use excuses to protect ourselves from feelings of failure and fear. Hopefully it will spur some readers out there into action.

Why we make excuses

exc

Photo credit: Franzi in der Wiese

A few years ago I was sitting in the car with a friend of mine having a conversation (argument) about how I always seem to find a way out of things. At the end of the debate he said something that has stayed at the front of my mind, something that I think about whenever I am feeling like making an excuse. He said:

“You have always found things easy. You are good at everything. But you aren’t great at anything because you make excuses. You would rather be the ‘potential’ to be great than actually try and fail. And that is sad.”

He was right. All my life I have been naturally gifted at sport and academics. I didn’t have to work hard to get good. But I never really excelled at anything. I never worked really hard to become great at a certain activity. Why? Because I was afraid of failure. I was afraid of trying and not getting there.

My parents role in this habit
I never blame my parents for anything in my life. I simply do not feel like it is a productive exercise. But I can see how certain things they did impacted the way I turned out. And one of those things was how my mother always told me how amazing I could be. She would constantly tell me how smart I was, how good at soccer I was and how I could become something truly special.

But rather than spurring me on to excellence it seemed to do the opposite. I was comfortable being the potential for greatness. I was afraid to actually give it a shot for fear that I wasn’t actually as smart, talented and athletic as she thought. So I made excuses. Excuses so I wouldn’t have to try.

And we all do it. All the time.

Fear: the reason for most excuses
So why do we make excuses? Why do we find ways to get out of things? Well, for the most part, it is because we are afraid. We are afraid of trying and we are afraid of failing. We are afraid of change and we will do anything to keep the norm functioning. Fear is the reason most of us make excuses.

If you look deep into your own mind and your own behavior you will see that you make excuses to protect your sense of self. We spend our whole lives developing and ego and decorating it with friends and family and money and success and we will do anything to protect our concept of that self. Even if it makes us depressed and unfulfilled. And ultimately that is what excuses do, they make you feel unfulfilled.

How to stop making excuses and move forward

Stretch it Out!
Creative Commons License photo credit: Triphamr

People say that the hardest thing you will ever do is quit smoking. But quitting excuses is 10 times harder. Excuses are the reason you started smoking, drinking and eating bad food. You make an excuse not to be healthy and an excuse not to be happy. Breaking the excuse culture is damn hard work. Here are some things you can do.

1. Realize that you do it all the time
As always, you need to take a look at yourself and really truly realize that you make mistakes. Find concrete examples of where you have sabotaged your progress by making an excuse and remember that incident. Bring it to mind whenever you feel like doing it again.

2. Look at your (lack of) progress
Take a look at how much progress you have made with your meditation, athletics, mortgage repayments or family weekend time. See how many excuses you have made and how that has affected your progress is a very real way. Until you can see that it is doing damage you will have no real impetus to stop.

3. Realize that death is coming
People always send me emails saying that I am too depressing when I talk about death. I always reply saying “it is depressing not to talk about it”. For too long our species has made death a taboo subject when, in fact, it is the only thing in life that is certain. Understand that death is coming and that you have no time for excuses. Not any. Its too hot, too cold, too nice inside, I’m too tired, I have a headache… all of those sound like absolute bullshit when you are on your deathbed looking back at what you didn’t achieve.

4. Realize you do it out of fear
If you go up to a fat man in the street and tell him that he is a coward he will probably punch you in the face. Men don’t like to be considered afraid, but that is exactly what we are. We make excuses because we are afraid. Why, then, do we still do it? If someone told us that we were afraid of something else we would do everything in our power to change and prove that we are brave. Do that now with excuses. Prove that you are not afraid of failure, change or losing the norm.

5. Be different in five years time
How different are you now to five years ago? Are you more loving, compassionate, patient, strong, rich, happy, thin, etc.? Take a look at whatever goal you have in your life and see how much closer you are to it now than you were five years ago. If you can say you are happy with your progress then chances are you don’t have a problem with excuses. If you are almost exactly the same then you can bet your right eye on the fact that you are stagnant because you are sabotaging your progress by saying “its too hard” or “its too cold outside”. Be different in five years time and stop making excuses.

Do you make excuses?

I would love to know how many of my readers consider themselves to be excuse makers. What kind of excuses do you come up with and how (if at all) have you dealt with them? Have your excuses held you back from being all that you can be? And how have you felt the weight of this “potential” slowing you down in life? Is it easier to not try?

Originally posted on September 27, 2009 @ 3:43 am