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US Soldier To Be Charged With Sexual Assault Of 19-Year-Old Soldier Asia Graham After She Was Found Dead In Her Barracks On New Years Eve

A soldier stationed at the famed Fort Bliss Barracks in the US, will be charged with the sexual assault of fellow soldier Asia Graham, who was found dead in the barracks on New Years Eve.

US Army officials have announced that a private first class soldier will be arraigned and tried for the sexual assault, but have not released the suspect’s name. Graham, 19, also a private first class, was a human resource specialist from North Carolina.

US soldier to be charged with sexual assault of 19-year-old soldier Asia Graham after she was found dead in her barracks on New Years Eve

She reported the assault on June 1, 2020 saying it took place in December 2019 leading the army to begin an investigation that they concluded in December 1, 2020.

US soldier to be charged with sexual assault of 19-year-old soldier Asia Graham after she was found dead in her barracks on New Years Eve

After the investigation, a top commander in the army agreed to her allegation that she was raped but in a huge turn of events, on December 31 2020, she was found dead in the barracks.

US soldier to be charged with sexual assault of 19-year-old soldier Asia Graham after she was found dead in her barracks on New Years Eve

Army officials say they do not suspect foul play in her death .

The base command said it promptly began an investigation and made sure Graham and the accused soldier were not living in the same building or working in the same areas.

Her mother believes the military failed to protect Graham after she came forward.

US soldier to be charged with sexual assault of 19-year-old soldier Asia Graham after she was found dead in her barracks on New Years Eve

‘I was with the military life I spoke very highly about the military. But in her situation, I think the leadership failed her,’ Asia’s mom Nicole Graham said to WBTV.

‘Do I think she was murdered? No. But do I think if it would have handled better from the beginning, I think she would have had the proper help before and she would have been OK.’

Gen. Sean Bernabe, the commander of the 1st Armored Division at Fort Bliss, has ordered a military trial for the suspect on the sexual assault case.

‘Maj. Gen. Bernabe is committed to maintaining the integrity and impartiality of the military justice system. As a reminder to the Fort Bliss community, charges are merely accusations, and all Americans are presumed innocent until proven guilty,’ an Army statement said. At the arraignment the judge will schedule a date for a military trial, referred to by the military as a court martial.Her cause of death is unknown at the moment as the Army and her family wait for the results of an autopsy.Graham enlisted in the Army in July 2019 and came to Fort Bliss five months later after completing combat training in Missouri and South Carolina.

Fort Bliss is just the latest Army base to face intense scrutiny in recent months, joinging the likes of Fort Hood, where another young female soldier Vanessa Guillen was murdered, and Fort Bragg, for a series of sexual assault claims and deaths.

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Esther Ijewere: 3 Signs of Emotional Exhaustion (And How To Get Over It)

2020 ended leaving me feeling emotionally exhausted , even while I consciously detoxed at intervals through out the year, When  I laid my head on my pillow on December 31st ,  I felt I used up all my energy, and I could hear  my body screaming “Slam the brakes, Esther”. I listened….only to wake up on January 1st to the sad news that a friend passed away due to Covid19.

This is my situation, but truth is we all get emotionally exhausted at some point in our lives. It is normal to experience an overdose of one emotion or another and deal with their hardship and struggle, and only through this experience can we truly see the beauty of life. But when the emotional exhaustion turns into a perpetual experience of negative emotions, it isn’t healthy anymore.

Emotions are the driving forces that build our character, and they give flavor to our lives. The more we understand emotions, the better we can deal and nurture them. The ability to deal and nurture our emotions and the emotions of others is called emotional intelligence.

Emotional intelligence is the capacity for identifying the signs of emotional exhaustion. It is natural to be emotional, show emotions to oneself, and share and express them to others. It is a crucial part of the individual’s personal and social development.

But can we really recognize our emotions in a way so we don’t get entangled by them—in a way that we get emotionally exhausted?

The Meaning of Emotional Exhaustion

Emotional exhaustion is the state when negative emotions overwhelm the present moment—in any aspect of life—over and over again,. Today, emotional exhaustion is closely linked to emotional labor, which when poorly managed results in being burn out

However, emotional exhaustion can also be an outcome of social, familial, friendly, or intimate relationships.

Regardless of the source, when you repeatedly feel the following:

  • Worried
  • Bored
  • Anxious
  • Unworthy
  • Unhappy

This increases the emotions of becoming even more:

  • Frustrated
  • Fearful
  • Doubtful
  • Angry and
  • Annoyed

And you reach a state of being emotionally exhausted—a state of dullness, confusion, and tiredness.

“Repeatedly” means daily. Every day, deep inside of you, there is the feeling of one or few of the above-mentioned emotions, overwhelming your present moment, playing a part in your daily activities—robbing a significant amount of your physical and mental strength and vitality.

What Are the Symptoms?

The symptoms are subjective or objective indicators that you feel within yourself. The first symptoms feel mostly like:

  • Tiredness – a subjective indicator that you feel somehow exhausted (physically or mentally), which at the same time might also be true that you’re not if your statement has the inclination of complaining.
  • Boredom – an objective indicator that gives you the unpleasant feeling of not knowing what to do—being disengaged from positive emotions, feeling dull, and empty.

Further symptoms would be the constant feeling of being unworthy of the things you do or unhappy with the things you do, regardless of your accomplishments.

Feeling constantly tired (physically) and disconnected from what is going on around you is a symptom that you’re emotionally exhausted. These symptoms lead inevitably to a behavioral pattern that evolves into a chronic habit of complaining. This leads to the objective signs of emotional exhaustion, which impacts professional and social life.

What Are the Signs?

The signs of emotional exhaustion can be detected through speech, tone of voice, body, and facial movements. Normally. they are to be detected by an outside observant like a professional or a loved one—any trusted person with an understanding of how emotions work.

Here are two things we need to do to identify the signs (as well as the symptoms) of emotional exhaustion:

  1. Improve self-awareness for more precise detection of the signs (the same goes for the symptoms as well);
  2. The openness to share our situation, feelings, and emotions with a trusted person—an observer with enough competence on the subject matter who can inform us about any signs of emotional exhaustion.

3 Signs of Emotional Exhaustion

The signs of emotional exhaustion are hidden in your emotional expression, and they show through your mood and the way you react and manage your emotions.

When lacking self-awareness, the most efficient way to identify the signs of emotional exhaustion is to seek professional support or ask your loved ones to have a closer look at your behavior, your reactions—like body posture, facial movements (micro-expression), and verbal or non-verbal expressions.

I know, it is not easy to share such personal feelings and weaknesses with others. But one thing that we must understand is that we are all interconnected, and our personal growth is dependent on communication and interrelation with the people around us. And that applies especially when things go wrong.

If you don’t open to your closest, how can you nurture your positive emotions and express positive qualities and virtues to others?

Self-awareness detects emotional exhaustion. As a meditation teacher, it is my daily business to analyze, study, and share my opinions about emotions. The meditation as the fundamental element of reviving the self-awareness can help to manage this whole subject matter.

My research in this field has proven that we can detect signs of emotional exhaustion once we objectively experience the following moods:

1. You Feel Tired Very Quickly and Very Often (Physical Exhaustion)

It is nothing but natural to become physically exhausted after performing physical activity. After a rest, the body recovers, recharges strength, and replenishes energy. Usually, in this condition, you have the stamina and the resilience to absorb many of the below-mentioned signs. But once the physical exhaustion becomes chronic, the body cannot replenish its energy that easily. That’s when you will feel fatigued.

2. You Lose Interest in Engaging in Daily Activities

Chronic tiredness results in a mood that expresses demotivation, idleness, annoyance, and frustration. These are signs of emotional exhaustion—showing no motivation, no vitality for engaging in or exploring new things in life.

3. You Feel Insecure, Incapable, and Unworthy

The need for isolation arises and you reach a mood where you feel insecure. Doubtful and anxious, you begin to question your capabilities and your self-esteem sinks lower and lower. The cocktail of these feelings and moods creates so much confusion, resentment, and sadness up to a point of complete emotional exhaustion—a state of burn-out.

How to Prevent or Get Over This Exhaustion?

One organic way to recover from emotional exhaustion: Meditation. I meditate alot .

  • Prevent the development of emotions—in other words, learn to identify the emotion before it arises and cut its process of evolvement. For example, the feeling of boredom leads to annoyance, and that leads to rejection, irritation, frustration, and so on.
  • Once a negative thought arises and creates a destructive feeling, it is a sign that negative emotion is about to erupt. The idea here is to disrupt the creation of this process and exchange it with a constructive mental and physical activity.
  • As emotions are the result of the unconscious repetition and acknowledgment of feelings that are supported by the constant creation of thoughts, it is imperative to understand that the root cause of emotional exhaustion is found in the creation of these thoughts.

Final Thoughts

One thing worth remembering is that no human being is spared from the turmoil of emotions. You, me, and everyone else suffer and enjoy the effect of the emotions that we create for ourselves.

The above technique sheds light on how you can identify, understand, and move through the whole spectrum of emotions to get over the emotional exhaustion and achieve emotional balance. This way, you can safely experience being the victim as well as the beneficiary of your various emotions.

Know that emotions are there to be analyzed and understood, not only to be enjoyed or avoided. Embrace them, handle them, and don’t get lost in them.

Stay Safe, Stay Safe and keep your thoughts positive in 2021!

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4 Essential Stress Relief Tips To Practice Everyday

Occasionally feeling stressed is a common experience you’ll deal with throughout your life. Many areas of your life, ranging from work to domestic life, are potentially stress-inducing for a wide range of reasons. As per Gallup data, 55% of Americans are stressed during the day, making them one of the world’s most stressed-out populations. As such, it is vital to know some useful stress relief tips to help you cope with life’s burdens as they arise. Take a look at these helpful points below.

Do something pleasurable

Several experts agree that one way to effectively de-stress is to engage in simple, everyday activities that please you. Stress is often cumulative, building up from multiple sources in your life. If left unattended, this cumulative stress can eventually overwhelm you both physically and mentally. Engaging in occasional acts of pleasure interrupts this stress accumulation by inhibiting your brain’s anxiety responses, preventing it from reaching overwhelming limits and making it easier for you to cope.

Consequently, try to engage in simple acts of pleasure to give you breaks from your stressful routine. Taking a warm bath, spending time on a favorite hobby, occasionally treating yourself to some “comfort food, etc., are significant steps you can take towards stress relief. Additionally, many experts recommend occasional vaping for stress relief because it helps you remain relaxed and happy. Therefore, feel free to order some Delta 8 THC carts for your vape pen to help you stay calm and happy despite your life’s many stressors.

Go outside more often

A Science Direct study proves that spending quality time outdoors benefits your mental health greatly by alleviating feelings of pressure and mental stress. Additionally, other research from an emerging scientific field called ecotherapy shows that spending time in nature can significantly reduce stress, anxiety, and depression. Therefore, a simple and inexpensive stress relief tactic you can use is to spend more time in nature rather than being cooped up indoors all the time.

Indoor living, whether in the home or office, is full of stress inducers. Being outdoors substitutes these routine high-pressure environments with calmer surroundings that have an instant mood-boosting and recharging effect. Spending time outdoors can also help you gain a crucial perspective on life because you see a bigger picture of the world that transcends mere domestic and work life. So, integrate outdoor activities like biking, hiking, taking long walks, and camping into your routine to escape your usual stressors and boost your mental health.

Have a good laugh

Laughter, they say, is the best medicine. Indeed, several health experts and researchers agree that this saying’s authenticity has solid scientific backing. According to science, laughter stimulates your organs because you take in more oxygen anytime you laugh, which is good for your muscles, lungs, and heart. Stress typically causes tension in parts of your body, and the spasms of laughter unwind these tense areas by making them more relaxed. A good laugh can reportedly relieve your body’s physical tension for up to 45 minutes!

Laughter releases endorphins that give you the “feel-good factor,” counteracting the harmful effects of cortisol (stress hormone) and reducing your blood pressure as a result. Laughter also distracts you from worrying thoughts, improves your mood and even your immune system. Therefore, sneak in episodes of some widely acclaimed sitcoms like Modern Family and The Office or revisit some Dave Chappelle classics to have a good laugh that is sure to de-stress you.

Quit multitasking

Although multitasking seems like a more efficient way of getting things done, several experts advise that this could be a deadly stress inducer. Science explains that your brain can ideally focus on one task at a time, so juggling more than one task drains your brain beyond its natural capabilities. Your brain copes with these increased demands by pumping more adrenaline and other stress hormones that give you an energy boost. A steady supply of these stress hormones over time strains your physical and mental health, causing conditions like depression, heart disease, back pain, etc.

Aside from experiencing physical and mental health struggles when you multitask, you are also counterproductive; dividing your efforts and attention between tasks results in limited input for each of the tasks. Consequently, you may take more time to complete tasks while churning out substandard output. Therefore, try to cut out multitasking in your daily routine to reduce stress and increase your productivity.

Try the 4 A’s

Multiple experts recommend practicing the 4As of stress relief as a potent way to de-stress in your professional and private life. The 4A’s are avoiding, altering, adapting to, and accepting situations that cause stress in your life. Avoiding stressful situations may help to eliminate the stress sources that surround you. For example, by learning to say no to proposals that are more than you can handle, you avoid potential stressors. Avoidance also means limiting the amount of time or ending relationships with people who consistently stress you to control your mental health better.

Taking control of your environment is also an effective way to relieve stress. For example, if going to the market is a stressor, consider doing your grocery shopping online. Effectively altering situations can also be useful in reducing stress and anxiety. Communicate feelings that stress you instead of bottling them up because bottled emotions cause resentment build-up, facilitating a spike in your stress levels. Finding the right work-life balance is also key to altering situations, so keep this in mind to relieve stress.

Adapting to conditions is the third “A” you should try to de-stress, mainly because there are situations you can’t change. Therefore, you can reframe problems to cope with difficulties better instead of allowing them to stress you out. For example, instead of fuming about being stuck in traffic, see it as an opportunity to enjoy some alone time or listen to your favorite podcasts. Finally, accepting situations you can’t change like other people’s behavior is also an effective stress reliever.

 

Source: BauceMag

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How To Create Life Goals And Put Them Into Action

Life goals are just as the name suggests: Goals that can play a major part in shaping your life.

Some examples of life goals include:

  1. To get fit
  2. To build a circle of supportive friends
  3. To become a thought leader
  4. To learn a new language
  5. To write a book
  6. To become debt-free
  7. To take up a new hobby that you’ll enjoy for the rest of your life

Of course, there are no limits to what life goals you might choose. We all have our unique experiences and skills, so what works for you may not work for someone else.

Choosing Your Goals

The trick to choosing life goals is to spend some time looking at all areas of your life.

Analyze specific areas of your life to see where your strengths and weaknesses are. The six life aspects are a good place to start this journey:

1. Physical Health

If your health is below par, your energy and drive will be affected, too. This will hinder your ability to achieve your aims. The good news is, however, that through simple changes, like improving your diet and exercising more, you can transform your health.

Goals to consider in this life aspect are:

  • Losing weight
  • Building muscle
  • Increasing stamina
  • Learning how to relax

2. Family and Relationships Fulfillment

Our success and well-being depend heavily on our relationships. Negative people can knock you off track, while positive people can help and support you throughout your life. It’s also important that you have a partner or close friend that you can share your fears, dreams, and goals with.

Goals to consider in this life aspect are:

  • Spending less time with negative people
  • Spending more time with positive people
  • Being grateful for your loving and supportive relationships
  • Widening your circle of friends to increase your influence

3. Work and Career Prosperity

Who doesn’t want a rewarding job or career? However, many people do not have these things. They feel miserable at work every day. However, life doesn’t have to be like this. You can break free from this trap by setting clear and realistic targets.

Goals to consider in this life aspect are:

  • Getting promoted
  • Changing careers
  • Setting up your own business

4. Wealth and Money Satisfaction

Not having enough money to do the things you want to do is frustrating, but for some people it’s even worse — they have debts that keep increasing every month. Clearly, money management is a vital skill and one that should really be taught in our schools.

However, it’s never too late to get your finances in order. Your focus should be on offering a service to the world. If it’s something that people need, then you should charge fairly for it and enjoy the rewards.

Goals to consider in this life aspect are:

  • Becoming a master of money management
  • Paying off your debts
  • Finding ways to earn more
  • Learning how to invest your spare income

5. Spiritual Wellness

Many people take comfort in believing in a power greater than themselves. It allows them to be humble and to keep their lives in perspective. It also offers them strength in times of difficulty. In my experience, spiritual wellness will definitely help you with your physical, emotional and mental wellness.

Goals to consider in this life aspect are:

  • Learning how to meditate
  • Joining a spiritual group
  • Reading (and contemplating) classic religious and philosophical books

6. Mental Strength

If your mind is weak, you’ll also be weak-willed. This means that you’ll find it hard to achieve the things you want. But if you can develop mental strength, then you’ll have focus, drive, and conviction. You’ll go from being a wishy-washy non-achiever to someone who gets things done!

Goals to consider in this life aspect are:

  • Building new habits
  • Developing your skills and knowledge
  • Playing games like Sudoku and chess
  • Pushing yourself beyond your comfort zone

I suggest you take plenty of time to think about the six life aspects. Hone in on the areas that you are weakest at, and make these your starting point.

For example, if your health is holding you back, then set life goals that will revitalize you. These could include things like: waking up early, cutting back on caffeine and sugar, and going for a daily walk, run or cycle. (Ideally, you could set a goal to do all these things.)

Putting Life Goals Into Action

Of course, it’s not enough to choose some goals that you’d like to achieve in your life — you also need to make a plan to achieve them!

My recommendation is that you pick just two or three small goals to start with. Set a date to accomplish them by, and then write down the necessary steps you’ll need to take to make the goals a reality.

For instance, if you’ve lost the “reading habit” but would like to rekindle it, you could set yourself a goal of reading one book per month. The steps to achieve this would be:

  1. Choose a book you’d like to read
  2. Purchase or lend the book from a library
  3. Check the amount of pages the book has
  4. Calculate how long it will take you to read each page
  5. Calculate how long it will take you read the whole book

Once you know how many hours it will take you to complete the book, it will then be straightforward to plan how many times a week you should set aside for reading and how long each reading session should be.

If it’s been a while since you’ve read a book, then the first month might be hard for you. But after that, you’ll begin to build the habit, and you’ll have no problem reading one or more books per month.

If non-fiction titles are your thing, you’ll be able to learn a tremendous amount over the course of a year. If fiction titles are your thing, then imagine the journeys you’ll go on!

When you accomplish your smaller goals, you’ll be ready to choose bigger and more substantial goals.

The secret behind being able to accomplish big goals is to break then down into bite-size chunks. This will make the goals easier to achieve as you’ll have clear steps to take you all the way to the end. Plus, at any point in time, you’ll be able to see how far along the path you are.

Final Thoughts

If you fail to have life goals, you’ll likely fail at life.

They is a big difference between just hoping that something good will come along and having a clear picture of what you want and then taking definite steps to get it.

Once put into action, life goals will transform your existence. You’ll be happier, healthier, and more successful.

Now, you just need to make a start. As Lao Tzu once said:

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

 

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How to Define Your Personal Values and Live By Them for a Fulfilling Life

What are Personal Values?

Personal values are part of the moral code that guides our actions and defines who we are. They are what we consider important, the things that matter to our well-being and happiness.

The simplest way to describe what personal values are is to think in terms of your personality and behaviors. Ultimately, your values become woven into your personality and become part of You.

Some of these are more of a universal rule of conduct—think along the lines of religion and the morals it teaches us. Then, there are some values that each of us decides to adopt, depending on what we hold dear in our lives and what we want to achieve and become. For instance, I may value kindness and compassion over fame and popularity.

To give you an idea of some personal values you may have, here is a good list:

  • Authenticity
  • Achievement
  • Adventure
  • Boldness
  • Compassion
  • Determination
  • Fairness
  • Faith
  • Fame
  • Friendships
  • Happiness
  • Honesty
  • Kindness
  • Learning
  • Loyalty
  • Meaningful Work
  • Openness
  • Optimism
  • Pleasure
  • Respect
  • Self-Respect
  • Spirituality
  • Stability
  • Success
  • Trustworthiness
  • Wealth
  • Wisdom

As you can imagine, the above can play out differently for each of us—there are varied combinations and priorities we use to adopt these. The end result?
The writer and poet Robert Zend greatly put it:

“People have one thing in common: they are all different.”

Values are often more or less visible to others and are expressed through our current actions, words, behaviors, but more importantly, they also carve the people that we are striving to become in the future.

That is, our personal values are not only an extension of ourselves, but they also shape our characters. They are us—who we are and what we stand for.

Why Are Personal Values Important?

Why does it all matter so much anyway?

Personal values are the main driver behind our personality and actions, and any endeavor to re-invent ourselves will have to tap into our current moral principles to give ourselves a chance at a more fulfilling life.

Knowing our moral principles can aid us in a variety of ways. It can help us find our purpose, ease decision-making, increase our confidence, and guide us through difficult situations.

Here are few other benefits of how knowing our own codes of conduct can help us turn our lives around.

  • Personal Values Help with Self-awareness

Self-awareness has earned a lot of attention in recent years. Indeed, its advantages are undeniable. It has been linked to enhanced personal development and better relationships, among a plethora of other gains. It helps us make sounder decisions, communicate more effectively, get more promotions, and be less likely to lie, cheat, or steal.

Simply put, self-awareness is a must-have skill we should all nurture.

Self-awareness is basically an awareness of your personality. There is certainly value to be had—personally and professionally—in what the Greats have wisely taught us: Know Thyself.

How would you otherwise know what you want to achieve, what you are capable of, or how far you can push yourself if you don’t have a clue who the person staring back in the mirror really is?

Understanding who we are begins with an awareness of what drives us, what makes us tick, and what we hold dear—that is, it starts with knowing our personal values.

  • Personal Values Influence Our Outcomes

What do you do with all the self-knowledge, though?

The coaches and gurus often advise that, in order to succeed and get everything we want in life, we need to play to our strengths. Using our powers instead of dwelling on our foibles can make us happier and less depressed. Of course, this implies that we know what these are to start with.

There is another, equally important side to why knowing ourselves and what we value in life can be beneficial. Yes, I’m talking about personal reinvention, self-improvement, life enhancement, and all the similar buzzworthy concepts of late. But it all comes down to change. Bluntly speaking, you can’t change what you don’t know.

When we talk about personal reinvention, we usually mean creating new habits, new behaviors, new ways of thinking, and, of course, adopting new personal values.

To change our outcomes and, ultimately, our lives, we need to change our actions and mindset. In order to do this, we need to weed out the trifles and decide what truly matters.

How to Find and Nurture Your Personal Values

To discover exactly what your personal values are, there are questions and techniques you can use. Here are a handful to help you get started.

1. Ask “Who Am I Today?”

As adults, we all have a certain set of values (adopted knowingly or not), which guide our actions and define the people we are today.

So, a good starting point is to make a list of 10-15 values we believe we live by. Use the list I provided at the beginning or find online a more detailed one. Pick the ones that best define you. Be honest with yourself.

To get a 360-degree picture of yourself, I would recommend that you do the same exercise with your family and friends. Show them the full list and ask them to pick the values that they think are synonymous with your personality. Do the two lists match?

The goal of this activity is to draw a realistic portrait of who you are. It is the starting point of the bigger pursuits of self-awareness, self-reinvention, and leading a more fulfilling life.

2. Prioritize Your Values

Not all we deem of importance is created equally in our minds. That is, some values are more significant to us than others. This is what determines your primary and secondary behaviors. For instance, you may value family and career, but we all know that a balance is hard to achieve. In your mind, one tops the other. Therefore, you would always take steps to advance what is dearer to you.

Read your list often. It’s also a way to reinforce your identity. Sometimes you can get so caught-up in the web of your busy everydays that you forget to focus on the most important person in your life: you.

Get to know yourself so that you can like yourself and avoid sabotaging your own efforts to change the things you want to.

3. Complete a Values Audit

The beautiful thing about personal values is that we all have a say and a choice in the people we evolve to become.

That’s what the gurus always trumpet: If you don’t like your life, change it.

Of course, this is easier said than done.

A good starting point is to have your values list, ranked by importance, and to re-assess it regularly—say semi-annually or annually. As our life circumstances change, so may the things we consider important to us. For instance, when you are fresh out of college, financial security may not be a top guiding principle as it may be for someone married with kids.

Read your existing list often and change it around as needed. Your primary behaviors will follow what you find significant.

But there is another side to this—it’s the process of adding of new values, embracing and making them part of our lives. One way to find such new values is to look at the people we respect and want to be like. Listen and watch them carefully— what principles do they live by? Can you emulate them?

Once you find a new guiding value you want to adopt, you must own it. As the popular author and entrepreneur Mark Manson writes:

“So, here’s the catch: sitting around thinking about better values to have is nice. But nothing will solidify until you go out and embody that new value. Values are won and lost through life experience. Not through logic or feelings or even beliefs. They have to be lived and experienced to stick. This often takes courage.”

Therefore, a value audit is an essential part of the process, both to re-examine our current priorities and to find new mountains to climb.

“If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.”

Change is part of the re-invention process.

Final Thoughts

In the end, our personal values are our moral compass of what to say, how to behave, how to treat ourselves and others, and what life choices to make.

Knowing what someone finds important can help you draw an accurate picture of their inner landscape, and it can also guide how you treat them, speak to them, appeal to them, or convince them to go your way. It is a valuable insight to have.

Research confirms this:

“Personal values reflect what people think and state about themselves. Understanding personal values means understanding human behaviour.”

Like our personalities, what we believe to matter in our lives is highly subjective, nuanced, and sometimes even self-contradicting. And it’s dynamic—it largely follows our life trajectory, but it can be further colored by the people that we meet, the goals we set, and the events that enter our lives.

But what we believe in, our personal values, are ultimately what shapes us as individuals.

If you want to make any kind of change, you must decide what to value and where your priorities lie.

That’s the surest path to self-renovation.

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20 Goals in Life to Achieve for Personal Success

Have you ever wanted to achieve personal success in your life but aren’t sure how? Almost all of us have. Except it is only a select few that realise that it is having the right goals in life that will carry you towards the dream of having your best days in front of you.

Personal goals come in every area of life, whether it be deeply personal ones, health-related, financial-related or how to become a better person in society. Prioritising sleep, practising mindfulness and keeping up with long, lost friends are just some of the goals you need to adopt to lead a happy and successful life.

Imagine if you had a set of amazing goals that you could begin today and continuing pursuing until your final days. How would that make you feel?

Once you realize that there is no set destination in this game of life, only a dance to be danced, you are free to achieve your own version of personal success.

This article is set out to help you achieve just that. It highlights a variety of goals in life in different areas such as health, finance and creativity that will help guide you toward fulfilling your own potential.

With 20 different goals, it is intended for you to take your favourites and run with them:

Personal Goals in Life:

1. Pursue Equanimity in Yourself

Whilst many people pursue happiness, wealth and health in themselves, it is usually only through equanimity where most of these things become accessible.

Equanimity is defined as peak calmness and composure, no matter what life is throwing at you. If you can find equanimity in the most difficult of situations, then you will breeze through situations that others (and your previous self) found extremely stressful.

The best way to achieve equanimity is to practice putting yourself in tough situations again and again. Just like learning to drive a car, gradually what used to terrify you becomes routine and that is how you start to level up.

2. Travel as Often as You Can

People often talk about travel being a gateway to the soul but it is hard to recognize just how true it is until you have done it for yourself.

Travelling doesn’t even have to involve flying to the other side of the world to become a Buddhist monk for a year. The benefits of travel can come from something as simple as a weekend away in a foreign city in your own country.

Travel not only opens you up to new people, new cultures and new experiences, it also helps you grow as a person by reminding you that there is more life going on outside of your own personal bubble.

So get out there and make travelling one of your goals in life!

3. Take a Class That Interests You but Is Irrelevant to Your Career

As a person who is passionate about self-improvement and creating a better quality of life, you probably love to learn new things and feel productive.

Sometimes though, you can overdo the whole career thing and forget about what truly sets your heart on fire. You forget about all of the hobbies you used to pursue before ‘life got in the way’.

So go out and take a class that you are fascinated by or used to love that has nothing to do with your work. Not only will life get back some sparkle but it will keep you much more refreshed for when it is time to work again.

4. Love Life for What It Is, Not What You Think It ‘Should’ Be

There are countless times when life doesn’t go your way. It is useless to fight it, so you just need to accept and embrace whatever life has in store.

When you are consumed by what life ‘should’ be like, you are drowning in your own expectations and shortcomings. This is a sure-fire way to lead a life of frustration and disappointment.

The only way around this is to enjoy every up and every down. Life is a symphony with a variety of notes and melodies; stopping and replaying one note that you like or don’t like spoils the whole thing.

5. Live Presently

Living in the past or in the future is where most of human suffering lies. It is often regrets about what you should have done or worries about what you need to do that lead to unnecessary negative emotion.

It is easy to forget that you only ever live in the present moment. Every thought and experience that you have ever had has taken place in the ever-flowing ‘now’.

Therefore it makes a lot of sense to make one of your life goals to live presently, as this is the only place where life happens.

Health Goals:

6. Run for 10km

Why 10km? Because it is not short enough that you can tick it off your life goals list with only minimal training but isn’t too long that you never start training.

10km at a good pace equates to about an hour of running. You can do that, right?

Even if you do happen to fall short of the marker, running is an excellent health habit to pick up anyway as it requires no gym membership and is accessible to anyone with a pair of running shoes. It should definitely have a place on your list.

7. Hold a Deep Squat for One Minute

You might think that this is an easy goal in life to accomplish because tiny babies can do it with ease. You might want to think again!

Although some of us can do it with relative ease, a surprising majority of people either struggle to get deep enough or fall backwards off balance when they get into the deep squat.

Holding a deep squat for a minute or more every day is a great way to boost your ankle, knee, lower back and core mobility as well as boosting your balance. All essential for moving (literally) through life.

8. Eat for 80% Health, 20% Pleasure

One of the best pieces of advice that I have ever received comes from a certified dietician talking about her own diet. She eats 80% for health and 20% for pleasure.

Let me explain: 80% of what she consumes is food that she knows is good for her that she may or may not particularly like. The other 20% is food that she loves, no matter how ‘bad’ it is for her.

This is an awesome life goal and diet to have and live by. It recognizes that the vast majority needs to be the good stuff but life isn’t truly lived without the tasty stuff every now and then too.

9. Drink More Water, Less of Everything Else

Although things like coffee, protein shake, herbal tea and even nicotine have their place for making you feel like a more productive human being, it is important to remember the water.

With over half of your body made up of H2O, getting at least a couple of glasses of the good stuff a day is essential to your overall well-being. Especially as your body uses water in all of its cells, organs and tissues and the role it plays in many other vital processes.

All of the other stimulants can also be addictive – everyone knows a guy who is hooked on coffee to keep a normal functioning body. Substitute in the water as a worthwhile long-term life goal for your health.

10. Prioritize Sleep

The hustling ‘no-sleep culture’ is slowly fading away and with it, a new appreciation for our oldest biological friend – sleep.

The literature on the importance of sleep is growing every day and is causing even the hardest-working entrepreneurs out there like Gary Vee and Mark Manson to start prioritising some shut-eye.

Sleep has been shown to improve learning, reduce risk of depression and even napping has been shown to be a great way to counteract some of the effects of a bad night of sleep.

These are just some of the exhaustive number of benefits of getting a good night sleep; so make it a priority.

Creative Goals:

11. Write down 10 Ideas a Day on Any Subject

Legendary entrepreneur James Altucher was the first to coin this idea of becoming an ‘Idea Machine’ and the effectiveness of writing down just 10 ideas a day. Since it went viral, thousands of people have adopted it as a life goal of their own.

The concept is simple: by writing down 10 ideas, you flex your ‘creativity muscle‘ that rarely gets pushed hard. Your theme for the day might be ideas for a book to write or ideas for becoming more productive or even something as silly as ideas about what you would spend $1 million on.

The theme doesn’t matter. The thinking does. It is usually around point five or six when people have to start thinking. Don’t give up! This is where the goal becomes most valuable and in no time, you will be an Idea Machine.

12. Pursue Being a Beginner Again

As you progress through life, your late teens and early twenties is far behind you. You have a better sense of who you are, what you like doing, what gives you joy, what irritates you and how to interact with other humans (usually!).

All of this might be convenient but it involves a slow slide into your comfort zone. And as you probably know by now, not much exciting life is lived in the comfort zone.

Ask yourself when was the last you time you were a beginner at something? The last time you knew that you looked a fool because you didn’t know what you were doing?

The answer should be often if you want to keep growing your character, personality and fortitude when it comes to dealing with new and uncertain situations. So get out there and try a new sport or a new hobby!

Relationship Goals:

13. Learn How to Say Sorry

Alongside ‘I love you’ and ‘Irish wristwatch’, saying sorry is one of the most difficult phrases to say in the English language.

There is something about an apology that can really interfere with your ego and lead the blame to be passed on to something or someone else on a frequent basis. Because of this, not many people apologise in their lives at all.

Therefore it might seem like a bit of a trivial goal to have in life but if you can learn the art, you will be one of the few people out there who knows how to say sorry. That is something worth striving for.

14. Call or Text Someone You Haven’t Spoken to in Months

As life ticks on, you tend to drift away from certain people that you were once close to. Even with your best friends or family that you still love deeply, it might be the case that you now only see them once a year as life starts to ‘get in the way’.

Incredibly, you are fortunate enough to live in an era where distance has shrunk because of technology. Those friends and family that you don’t get to see face-to-face anymore are just a text or phone call away.

It is an extremely easy and fulfilling goal to satisfy and one that you can complete today. Pick up the phone and have a quick chat with someone you haven’t spoken to in months. You will be glad you did.

15. Consciously Maintain a Work Life Balance

When you are at your productive best and the work piles up just as quickly as you complete it, it can become easy to get lost and think that work = life.

The two are not equated though. Work is just one facet of life; usually the activity that you complete to make money or if you are fortunate, something that you enjoy too.

However, there is far more to life than just work. Your relationships, friendships, hobbies, health and many other aspects are just as important and often become neglected in the face of work.

It is a noble goal in life to limit your work and to take time for all the other essential parts of life as well. Nobody regrets working too little on their deathbed, only too much.

Social Goals:

16. Communicate Your Ideas with the World

It is surprisingly common for an infinitely complex human like yourself to put themselves down and not feel like they are worthy enough to share their opinion.

Whether you realize it or not yet, the world needs you. It needs your ideas, your enthusiasm and your unique perspective on the human experience. Whilst many people think they are doing good by keeping thoughts to themselves, they are actually doing a disservice to everyone who would benefit from their voice.

Your communication goal doesn’t have to be giving a TED Talk. A great goal is to simply be more expressive about your thoughts and opinions and to be receptive to those of other people.

Starting your own blog or podcast is one of the best ways to do this, but simply telling your ideas to a friend is a fantastic start.

17. Fix Things That Are Broken

If you pursue this goal, even passively, it will lead to not just a much better life for yourself but also for the world around you.

The beauty of this goal is that it can be as small-scale or as large-scale as you want it to be. Don’t like the way the door handle to your bathroom is wonky? Fix it. Don’t like the fact that there is no app for that problem yet? Build it.

Entropy may be the natural state of the observable universe, but we can keep things in order for just a little longer.

18. Volunteer for a Charity

This is one of those life goals that seems to be on everyone’s bucket list but not everyone gets round to doing. If you can manage to complete it, the results can be life-changing.

Volunteering for a charity gives you an impression of what life is like for those in less favourable circumstances than your own. It provides a unique perspective about all of the blessings in your own life and is usually followed by a profound sense of gratitude.

Of course, not all of the reasons to volunteer for a charity are self-focused. Many people are left benefitted by your charitable actions and like with the ‘fix things’ goal, the world is left in a slightly better way after you have done your part.

Financial Goals:

19. Aim to Live Debt-Free

Debt is something that will hang over your head for the rest of your life if you let it and it can definitely be a hindrance to achieving the other goals on this list if there is too much of it.

Debt is almost inevitable in life. Whether you are paying off a mortgage, have monthly car payments or use a credit card. However, living debt-free has to be the goal and the associated peace of mind to go with it.

There are a number of ways to manage it, but perhaps the best way is to save a little more money when you get paid. Not only is it easier to save when you get paid compared to when you are running out of money, these small savings eventually accumulate to big ones that allow you to pay off big chunks of debt.

This is one of the best goals in life.

20. Stop Trading Time for Money

Most conventional jobs do just that. The one resource that you can never get more of – time – is traded away for a resource that you can always get more of and beyond a basic level of income, is only used to by wants not needs.

To stop trading time for money is to enjoy freedom. It is to take advantage of the universe’s scarcest resource and live life on your own terms.

There are a couple of ways to achieve this goal; either find a job that you enjoy and you get paid for or build new income streams like a side-hustle that helps you to buy back your time.

Final Thoughts

With all of this information on the various goals that you can pursue in your life for greater personal success, I hope that you feel a little less stuck and a little more inspired than when you first stumbled across this article.

As mentioned in the introduction, these goals are something that you can work at basically forever. Because the path is so long, don’t be disheartened by all of the bumps and jerks that will inevitably arrive in the journey. This is just part of the process.

You don’t have to wait to begin any of these goals. You can begin working on any and all of them today.

So what are you waiting for? Your personal success awaits!

 

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How To Develop Different Perspectives On Life

What Is a Life Perspective?

Life perspective is the way people see life, including the way they approach life and all there is in their personal experience.

In this life, few things are absolutely right or wrong. What we usually have are two different perspectives on one thing. We have a person saying something is bad and should not be done, and then we have another person saying that “bad” is a strong word to use for the same thing.

Recently, a question hit social media: “Can you marry or go into a relationship with your best friend’s spouse if your best friend is dead?”

As usual, different answers hit the net, and while some thought it was morally wrong based on a truckload of sentiments, others felt there was absolutely no big deal to it. This was based on the fact that the person who would probably have an issue with this was dead, and there were no reports of the two people who now want to go into a relationship seeing each other before the death of the ex-spouse.

As a neutral person who has not picked a side yet, you can see that both sides of this argument have concrete reasons to support their answers. They have different choices, and all of the choices are valid.

While one set sees life from the perspective of “anything goes as long as it makes you happy,” another set sees life as “there are boundaries you should not cross.”

You see now that there are two valid perspectives here. Both of them are right in their choices, and saying one is wrong is an unsupportable stance.

There are more than 7 billion people in the world seeing things a lot differently compared to the next person. This complicates life because, instead of seeing the similarities we share, we often focus on what is different, which leads to disagreements and fights. Simply making a switch and attempting to see from a different perspective could help many of these problems.

How Important Is Your Perspective on Life?

Your perspective on life determines how you relate to people, how you handle relationships and troubles, and how you live day-to-day. You may not realize how important your perspective on life is because we often feel that as long as other people’s opinions and decisions do not affect us, ours should not affect other people

However, the fact is that our perspective on life does affect the people around us.

Imagine two individuals having to look at the number “6” from different points of view.

We can end up having two adults who refuse to agree to disagree and separate after a heated argument, destroying the chances of building a relationship.

We can also end up having two adults who swapped positions and perspectives and looked through each other’s eyes for a minute to see that this could either be a 6 or a 9, depending on where they stood. This could graduate into handshakes, drinks later, and the start of a friendship. And all they had to do was view things from a different perspective.

Your perspective on life can either make or mar a relationship.

If you have a bad or negative perspective on life, it affects everything and everyone around you negatively. You find yourself constantly being angry and not being able to accept other people’s perspectives.

Other times you find yourself complaining and stressing over things that simply require a small shift in your perspective.

Having a good perspective on life gives you an advantage.

First of all, you are a lot more open to seeing from other people’s perspective, thus making it easy for you to create meaningful relationships.

It also gives you a lot more reasons to be grateful and happy. If you live a life where you are constantly showing gratitude and being happy, then you have lived a fulfilled life.

How to Change Your Perspective on Life

Changing your perspective is an active decision you have to make intentionally. First, you have to come to terms with the fact that your current perspective on life is not absolute and can be changed. Then, you have to understand the importance of having a different perspective from the one you already have.

Once you have dealt with these, here are some active steps you can take to changing your perspective on life.

1. Stop Complaining

Whatever the issue is, whenever you feel like complaining, fold your thumb, bite your tongue, do something and make sure it stops you from letting out that complaint. When you listen and try to understand more than you complain, you are beginning to see things from diverse perspectives.

2. Consciously Seek Happiness

When you are happier, you will see things more positively and seek out more things that make you happy. However, when you are constantly brooding and thinking negatively, your perspective will never change, and soon all that negativity will begin to spread around you like wildfire.

3. Reduce the Social Media Vitriol

Oftentimes on social media, people will post one thing and followers will take on a different perspective regarding its meaning.

When different phrases in a post hit social media, some people do not understand them, which can increase online conflicts.

Responding to critical or negative posts with a sense of maturity and lightheartedness will lessen any vitriol spills and keeps anyone from receiving blocks.

When you are on social media, always seek the other angle of the person disagreeing with you. Your opinion is not alpha, it is just an opinion and can change.

The beautiful thing about perspective is that it is subject to change. It is not static, and the decision to alter it rests on you.

Final Thoughts

The moment your perspective on life comes to play, always remember that it is not the alpha perspective and that the other person’s perspective matters as well.

Your perspective on life can also improve, and trying to get into someone else’s shoes might show you the way to betting your thoughts and your attitude.

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How to Stay Motivated and Reach Your Big Goals in Life

It is hardly a secret that the key to successfully accomplishing one goal after another is staying motivated. There are, of course, tasks which successful people may not like at all, yet they find motivation to complete them because they recognize how each particular task serves a greater goal.

So how to stay motivated most of the time? Here are 5 simple yet effective ways on how to be motivated and get what you want:

1. Find Your Good Reasons

Anything you do, no matter how simple, has a number of good reasons behind it.

You may not be able to find good reasons to do some tasks at first but, if you take just a few moments to analyze them, you will easily spot something good. We also have many tasks which don’t need any reasoning at all – we’ve been doing them for so long that they feel natural.

If you’re ever stuck with some tasks you hate and there seems to be no motivation to complete it whatsoever, here’s what you need to do: find your good reasons.

Even when you set goals, there needs to be reasons behind these goals. They may not be obvious, but stay at it until you see some, as this will bring your motivation back and will help you finish the task.

Some ideas for what a good reason can be:

  • A material reward – quite often, you will get paid for doing something you normally don’t like doing at all.
  • Personal gain – you will learn something new or will perhaps improve yourself in a certain way.
  • A feeling of accomplishment – at least you’ll be able to walk away feeling great about finding the motivation and courage to complete such a tedious task.
  • A step closer to your bigger goal – even the biggest accomplishments in history have started small and relied on simple and far less pleasant tasks than you might be working on. Every task you complete brings you closer to the ultimate goal, and acknowledging this always feels good.

2. Make It Fun

When it comes to motivation, attitude is everything. Different people may have completely opposite feelings towards the same task: some will hate it, others will love it.
Why do you think this happens? It’s simple: some of us find ways to make any task interesting and fun to do!

Take sports for example. Visiting your local gym daily for a half-an-hour workout session sounds rather boring to some. Yet many others love the idea!

They like exercising not only because they recognize the good reasons behind it, but simply because it’s fun! At certain time of their daily schedule, they find going to gym to be the best thing to do, simply because nothing else will fit their time and lifestyle so perfectly.

Depending on how you look at it, you can have fun doing just about anything! Just look for ways of having fun, and you’ll find them!

A simple approach is to start working on any task by asking yourself a few questions:

  • How can I enjoy this task?
  • What can I do to make this task fun for myself and possibly for others?
  • How can I make this work the best part of my day?
  • As long as you learn to have the definite expectation of any task being potentially enjoyable, you will start to feel motivated.

Some of you will probably think of a thing or two which are valid exceptions from this statement, like something you always hate doing no matter how hard you try making it fun. You’re probably right, and that’s why I don’t claim everything to be fun.

However, most tasks have a great potential of being enjoyable, and so looking for ways to have fun while working is definitely a good habit to acquire.

3. Change Your Approach And Don’t Give Up

When something doesn’t feel right, it’s always a good time to take a moment and look for a different approach for the task.

You may be doing everything correctly and most efficiently, but such approach isn’t necessarily the most motivating one. Quite often, you can find a number of obvious tweaks to your current approach which will both change your experience and open up new possibilities.

That’s why saying “one way or another” is so common — if you really want to accomplish your goal, there is always a way; and most likely, there’s more than one way.

If a certain approach doesn’t work for you, find another one, and keep trying until you find the one which will both keep you motivated and get you the desired results.

Some people think that trying a different approach means giving up. They take pride in being really stubborn and refusing to try any other options on their way towards the goal.

My opinion on this is that the power of focus is great, but

you should be focusing on your goal, and not limiting your options by focusing on just one way to accomplish it.

4. Recognize Your Progress

Everything you may be working on can be easily split into smaller parts and stages. For most goals, it is quite natural to split the process of accomplishing them into smaller tasks and milestones. There are a few reasons behind doing this, and one of them is tracking your progress.

We track our progress automatically with most activities. But to stay motivated, you need to recognize your progress, not merely track it.

Here’s how tracking and recognizing your progress is different:

Tracking is merely taking a note of having reached a certain stage in your process. Recognizing is taking time to look at a bigger picture and realize where exactly you are, and how much more you have left to do

For example, if you’re going to read a book, always start by going through the contents table. Getting familiar with chapter titles and memorizing their total number will make it easier for you to recognize your progress as you read. Confirming how many pages your book has before starting it is also a good idea.

You see, reading any book you will be automatically looking at page numbers and chapter titles, but without knowing the total number of pages, this information will have little meaning.

Somehow, it is human nature to always want things to happen in short term or even at once. Even though we split complex tasks into simpler actions, we don’t quite feel the satisfaction until all is done and the task is fully complete.

For many scenarios though, the task is so vast that such approach will drain all the motivation out of you long before you have a chance to reach your goal. That’s why it is important to always take small steps and recognize the positive different and progress made. This is how your motivation can sustain in long term.

5. Reward Yourself

This is a trick everyone likes: rewarding yourself is always pleasant. This is also one of the easiest and at the same time most powerful ways to stay motivated!

Feeling down about doing something? Dread the idea of working on some task? Hate the whole idea of working? You’re not alone.

Right from the beginning, agree on some deliverables which will justify yourself getting rewarded. As soon as you get one of the agreed results, take time to reward yourself in some way.

For some tasks, just taking a break and relaxing for a few minutes will do.

For others, you may want to get a fresh cup of coffee and even treat yourself a dessert.

For even bigger and more demanding tasks, reward yourself by doing something even more enjoyable, like going to a cinema or taking a trip to some place nice, or even buying yourself something.

Your progress may not seem to others like anything worth celebrating but, take time and do it anyway! It is your task and your reward, so any ways to stay motivated are good.

The more you reward yourself for the honestly made progress, the more motivated you will feel about reaching new milestones, thus finally accomplishing your goal.

Mix and Match for the Best Effect!

Now that you have these five ways of staying motivated, it is a good moment to give you the key to them all: mix and match!

Pick one of the techniques and apply it to your situation. If it doesn’t work, or if you simply want to get more motivated, try another technique right away. Mix different approaches and match them to your task for the best results.

Just think about it: Finding good reasons to work on your task is bound to helping you feel better; and identifying ways to make it fun will help you enjoy the task even more.

Or, if you plan a few points for easier tracking of your progress and on top of that, agree on rewarding yourself as you go; this will make you feel most motivated about anything you have to work through.

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Should I Just Do What Is Important First?

We’ve all heard the advice: do the most important task first thing in your day.

It’s fine advice, but oftentimes, it has backfired. Why?

You have to know what’s most important first before you can do it.

Which means you have to be willing to name and own what you want.

Sometimes that’s easy. You want a job. You want to pump up your health. You want to finish your project. You want to keep the kids alive, the bills paid.

You want the insanity about this pandemic to end and people to wear their masks.

And sometimes, you don’t know what you want. Or you do, but you don’t feel “good enough” for what you want. Or you’re just too tired to do anything about it.

Then analysis-paralysis, time monsters, procrastination, and plain old “why bother?” can eat up your days.

Because without desire, it’s difficult to know what’s most important.

But who has any bandwidth for desire these days?

Yet, without it, everything is so dry. So very dry.

We have just transitioned into a new year and it is natural to want to add new challenges and up your game. But it is also not news that there’s a chance you don’t know exactly what you want to do next.

You do what needs to be done but at the end of the day, you feel empty and insufficient.

You know you need to resist doing and spend time being, which sounds like such a cliche, but it’s the bone deep truth.

Yet when you’re frayed and flattened by so many giant global events, who wants to settle? you just want to numb.

It is clearly understood.

But here’s the deal:
Don’t pressure yourself just because you need to do something. Take it easy on yourself and give yourself moments to settle down. Promise yourself to not enact a new idea until you are sure you really want to do it. And not to forget, you know why you’re doing it.

Journalling is a great way to help you keep things in check. It helps you think clear thoughts.

Settling down is a learned skill. We’re social creatures, we have complex lives to tend to, and being quiet with ourselves often takes effort. Nevertheless, who is going to determine your future—Netflix, your boss, your pet, social media, your to-do list, or your deeper desires, values, aspirations, or the full and awakened life calling to you? Settling down is an act of soul resistance, and your life depends on it.

What will never become clear, never grow roots and become real, or never feel truly possible to me if I don’t settle?

I get how hard it is to allow room and time to be so we can listen to what’s next. Even when you have no kids and families to take care of, you agree that it is still hard to settle down and quiet your thoughts sometimes.

But then, it is exactly these moments where we don’t know what we want where we need to listen the most. To journal, to talk, to be still.

The most important thing to do, when you don’t know what you want, is to spend time settling down into the grace of inner stillness. However you wish.

And if all of this makes you want to run screaming from the room, put your hand on your heart and remind yourself allowing desire can trigger your emotional immune system to say, “Threat! Extreme danger! Run away now!” Notice you are okay in this moment. You have enough oxygen to breathe, gravity is holding you to the Earth, and you’re not starving; you’re okay.

Then ask yourself, “What’s one tiny thing I desire right now?” Even if you can’t have it, ask. Be curious for yourself.

Doing what’s most important can become a hustling scam when we don’t connect it back to what we truly care about. Life will always be filled with important stuff to do, people to take care of, the planet to fight for, and yet we can lose our way and fall into emptiness and “blahness” without a relationship to desire.

So before you rush onto the next thing, ask yourself “is this really important to me right now?”

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How To Be Consistent

One of the seemingly difficult things to do is to be consistent.
Consistent in our creative work, in building our businesses, taking care of our health, staying in relationship with friends and family, or in our spiritual practice.

We all need some form of consistency in our lives but despite this knowledge, why is it still hard to be consistent?

Before we address that, it is pertinent to point out that it isn’t always hard to be consistent. There are times when it is easy to maintain a level of consistency.

When are those times?

  • When we feel safe.
  • When we are surrounded by effective support systems like decent work, decent health insurance and care, decent housing, decent air and water quality, in-person connection and community, etc.
  • When we have basic, healthy boundaries in place. (Difficult when your home is bursting with people who don’t usually live there.)
  • When we are doing things we genuinely care about or that we know support us in doing what we genuinely care about.
  • When we remember nobody need give us permission and there aren’t any rules.
  • When we see the impossible standards of modern life for what they are — a major distraction and energy drain — and, instead, embrace our human-scaled life.
  • When we keep asking ourselves, “What do I want to be consistent about and why?”
  • When we have mercy on ourselves and others.
  • When we always begin again, but only on what we value.

People always want to know how to be consistent. I believe you also want to know how to be consistent, that’s why you’re still reading.

But the main question you should ask is “why do I want to be consistent?

Consistency for consistency’s sake can become a false god that demands endless sacrifices of your time and life’s energy for no good reason.

Consistency to ground  you and help you create more of a life that sings with your signature themes and desires, and health and well-being? That’s the good kind.

The world is full of noisy advice and bossy shoulds about how to live your “best” life. How would anyone else know that but you?

You may think you want to know how to be consistent, but —

For the sake of what will you be consistent?

Is that consistency possible given your current life and the pandemic? Probably yes but maybe not like before. Can you be open to change?

If it isn’t, what needs to change? Your demands on yourself? Your boundaries? Your support systems?

Understanding the need for consistency and what it would cost you to be consistent is the key to be consistent.

Be flexible, be open to changes because life cannot be a hundred percent predictable so don’t be afraid to switch protocols when life happens.

Knowing why you do the things you do will help you put in your best and be consistent at things without pressure.

To your life, lived the only way it can be–by you. No forcing, no holding back.

 

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