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Not everyone will understand your journey. That’s fine. It’s not their journey to make sense of. It’s yours.

Zero Dean

Author | Photographer | CG Artist | Filmmaker

Focus and attention

Self-fulfilling cycles

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Whether directly or indirectly, what we choose to pay attention to can have a dramatic impact on not just how we feel, but on our life experience as well.

Expecting negative things to happen is not just more likely to draw our attention to their existence, it’s more likely to prolong it as well. This, in turn, can create a self-fulfilling cycle of negativity.

Energy is contagious. We tend to absorb and proliferate the type of energy we consistently pay attention to. Therefore it is imperative that we be intentional about where we place our attention and be conscious of how it makes us feel.

 

Rather than monitoring and confirming to ourselves how bad things can get before they get better, making positive changes efficiently is much more likely to involve focusing on the actions one can take to initiate positive change and then performing those actions as effectively as possible.

“I’ve heard it before.”

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“I’ve heard it before.” Of course you have. Who hasn’t?

Like many, my goal isn’t to reinvent the wheel. My goal is to share things in a way that make the message I’m trying to share click with people. And other times, it’s just to remind people of something they already know simply because it’s been helpful to me and I feel like sharing it.

So yeah, you’ve probably heard it before. And one of these days someone will eventually say it in a way that actually makes it meaningful to you. Because if it was meaningful to you, you likely wouldn’t mind hearing it again.

Challenges in life are inevitable

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Challenges in life are inevitable. And things don’t always go the way we want them to. But we can reduce the negative impact that challenging experiences have on us by remaining focused on what is within our power to change and being open to the lessons that life has to teach us.

Related:

Use it or lose it

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I spent nearly 10 years paying to store things I eventually got rid of. And all the money I spent on storage could’ve paid to re-acquire the things I stored. In the end, I spent a lot of money to learn that if you don’t use it, there’s a good chance you don’t actually need it.

“I’m keeping this because I’m going to do something with it.” is one of the biggest lies we tell ourselves.

If we’re not careful, the things we own often end up owning us.

If you don’t use it, get it to someone who will.

Fault-finding vs appreciation-seeking

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There’s nothing difficult about finding faults, flaws, and things to disagree with — which is why so many people seemingly make a sport of it.

When you find yourself with a predominantly negative view of people (or life in general), it can help to change your focus from fault-finding to appreciation-seeking.

“What can I appreciate about this person, this moment, or this thing?” is a question that will often leave one feeling far better for having asked it than simply focusing on all the things one doesn’t like.

 

Where’s your respect?

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One of the most significant aspects of living a happy, healthy, and fulfilling life comes down to respect.

Respect for yourself, your body, and your goals. Respect for other people, their property, and their beliefs. Respect for your time and other people’s time. Respect for your relationships, your community, and your environment. And countless other things.

Nearly every important aspect of life deteriorates without respect.

Where is your respect (or lack thereof) reflected in your life?

You’re not here to live someone else’s life

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For what it’s worth, when you go about your day without comparing your life to how other people are living theirs, there’s a good chance that you’ll be happier for it.

Be kind & do what you feel is right, but also be mindful of the fact that you’re not here to live someone else’s life, you’re here to live your own.

And, most certainly, don’t let how other people are living their lives dictate how you feel about your own.

Define the problem

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People have a nasty tendency to live with problems that they don’t take the time to define. It’s almost as if by refusing to acknowledge the source of a problem, they believe they can get away with not doing anything about it. And that’s how small issues often become big problems.

If you’re unhappy, unhealthy, unfulfilled, or unsatisfied — and it isn’t clear why — stop avoiding the problem by refusing to define it.

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