Living the Good Life

The #1 Hack to Build Healthy Habits in the New Year

January 3, 2022 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Even the more determined souls among us find that New Year’s resolutions aren’t effective.

Some of us don’t even bother making New Year’s resolutions anymore because we always break them. Mark Twain famously wrote in a letter to the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise in January 1863,

New Year’s Day: now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual … New Year’s is a harmless annual institution, of no particular use to anybody save as a scapegoat for promiscuous drunks, and friendly calls, and humbug resolutions.

When we try to change everything at once, we set ourselves up for failure

We make bold resolutions to start exercising or losing weight, for example, without taking the steps needed to set ourselves up for success. Behavioral scientists who study habit formation argue that most people try to create healthy habits in the wrong way. Starting a new routine isn’t always easy.

Stanford University researcher B. J. Fogg, the author of Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything (2019,) notes that jumping cold turkey into new beginnings upon the turn of the calendar demands a high level of motivation that can’t be sustained over time. He recommends starting with tiny habits to help make the new habit as easy and achievable as possible in the beginning.

Small Measures, Large Results

Small, specific goals are amazingly effective. Making a New Year’s resolution to “run a marathon this summer” is an imposing aspiration to get started on, but committing to “run two miles in 30 minutes thrice a week in January” is a first operating objective.

Break any big challenge into simple steps and just focus on getting to the first step. Taking a daily short stroll could be the beginning of an exercise habit. Then, regroup and think about step two.

The truth is, if you invest time and have even a little bit of success in any endeavor, you’re both more likely to believe the changes will last and commit more. Success builds momentum.

Idea for Impact: Good habits happen when we set ourselves up for achievable success.

Bold promises and vague goals don’t work well. Neither does beating up on yourself for lapses.

Make New Year’s resolutions by establishing long-term targets and making many small resolutions all year round. If you want to lose weight, resolve to pass up nacho-and-cheese and soda for a month.

Take one baby step at a time. Expect some setbacks. The willpower necessary will be small. And you’ll get better results that’ll actually stick.

How to Encourage Yourself During Tough Times

December 20, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

My biggest takeaway from Daniel M. Cable’s Exceptional: Build Your Personal Highlight Reel and Unlock Your Potential (2020) is maintaining an inventory of reminders of all of the things you’re grateful for: the achievements, accomplishments, things you’re proud of, and events you want to celebrate—even others’ notes of gratitude.

When you’re entranced by ongoing anxieties and unable to find refuge in presence, the negative self-talk becomes your default setting. Unable to focus on what is happening right now, you spiral downward and find yourself in ruts that hold you back from your potential. Reigniting a certain sense of pride within yourself can jolt you into a more optimistic cycle and create real personal change. It can enable you to maintain a stable center no matter what’s going on in your life right now.

Research on the ‘Reflected Best-Self Exercise’ indicates that scanning the “highlight reel” of the best you’ve achieved in your life can help you, as it would a professional athlete, rediscover and reinforce how to repeat past successes. It can energize you to use your strengths even more and give more to others.

Idea for Impact: You make your most significant impact when focusing on what you do best. A personal highlight reel will remind you how others perceive you when you make your best impact and hope you build upon the unique strengths that make you exceptional.

How Emotional Resilience Improves with Age

December 17, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Studies of social and emotional aging have consistently shown that we tend to enjoy a better sense of emotional well-being as we grow older—starting from our late 50s.

The brain slows down, and memory deteriorates with age, so we process information slower. We get better at regulating the instinct to enact annoyance and anger.

As we get older, we tend to have a positive bias. We stop sweating the small stuff, pick our battles wisely, and find it easier to let go of situations we experience as unfavorable, especially with friends and family.

The lessons these studies bear for us all: organize your life’s physical and social aspects to reduce unnecessary stressors. Happiness is indeed a result, not a cause.

Is Dave Ramsey Wrong? Pay Off Your Mortgage as Quickly as You Can?

November 29, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Sure, personal finance guru Dave Ramsey’s advice has encouraged thousands of devoted followers to get out of debt and stop living paycheck to paycheck. Yet, depending on your circumstances, he may be dead wrong on paying off your mortgage early.

A generation ago, mortgage rates were 6–10%. With interest rates that high, paying off your mortgage was a no-brainer. Today, however, interest rates are 2.5–4%, making a different story. You could pay off your mortgage quicker if you’d like. But with the low-interest rates today, you may want to consider investing instead of paying off the low-interest debt. The average stock market return for buy-and-hold investors over the long term is about 7% annually, even after considering inflation.

In sum, Dave Ramsey’s advice just doesn’t make as much sense today with how low-interest rates are comparatively.

But some nuance is in order: Ramsey promotes financial stability. He accepts the risk of missed investment returns in exchange for the guarantee of reduced financial obligations. On balance, investing in the market while carrying a mortgage is tantamount to leveraging debt.

Idea for Impact: Ramsey measures opportunity cost as the difference between paying down your mortgage and the worst-case stock market investment scenario. So, unless you’re extraordinarily risk-averse and can’t take the risk in the market, you shouldn’t pay off your mortgage early. Invest in a low-cost index fund, and don’t let short-term movements sway your decisions.

Change Your Perfectionist Mindset (And Be Happier!) This Holiday Season

November 25, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Perfectionism can inspire you to deliver top-quality work, but it’ll cause needless anxiety and slow you down, especially over the holiday season.

Even for the more fastidious among us, a spotless home isn’t always achievable. Everywhere you look, there’ll be something to straighten up—unfolded laundry, kids’ toys on the floor, piles of unopened mail.

Embrace the mess. Recognize that not all will get done on time. Tolerate some clutter from time to time and excuse yourself for not getting all the chores done or having a perfect home.

Don’t cling to your perfectionism even when it’s counterproductive. Put things away when you’re able to, but don’t feel like you have to dedicate many hours to tidy up, especially when that time can be better spent relaxing and rejoicing with family.

Idea for Impact: Now is a good time you cut yourself a break. There’s no need to feel less-than-great about the state of your home over the holidays.

Each Temperament Has Its Own Language

November 18, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

From Dr. Irmgard Schlögl’s The Wisdom of the Zen Masters (1976) (she was later Ven. Myokyo-ni, Rinzai Zen Buddhist nun at the Zen Centre in London):

An elder Zen monk on his pilgrimage put up in a monastery. He came across another monk who was also on the pilgrimage. The two discovered that they had much in common, and decided next morning to continue together.

They came to a river where the ferryboat had just left. The elder took a seat to wait for its return. His new friend continued however, walking over the water.

Halfway across, he turned around and beckoned the elder to follow, “You can do it, too. Just have confidence and tread on.” The elder shook his head and stayed put.

“If you are scared, I’ll help you across. You see I can do it without much trouble.” Yet again, the elder shook his head.

The other reached the other bank of the river. He waited there until the ferry had brought the elder over. “Why did you hang back like that?” he asked.

“And what have you gained by rushing like that?” replied the elder.

“Had I known what you were like, I would not have taken up company with you.”

Wishing him farewell, the elder resumed his pilgrimage on his own.

Temperament clashes exist to some extent in almost all relationships. The language of camaraderie that two people share so effortlessly at some moments can unravel at others.

Sometimes each person believes they are deliberately communicating their needs and values, when indeed little gets through because each is working from different core assumptions and expectations—conveying and interpreting language, gestures, and intent differently, or seeking a different set of signals.

Idea for Impact: Each temperament has its own language.

Each of us has our own expectations of relating in an interpersonal relationship. When there are problems, don’t always attempt to “fix” them or back off and distance yourself. Simply give the other more space to be who they are. Seek to understand.

The Best Way to Achieve Success is to Visualize Success

October 7, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

What athletes think about has a profound effect on how they perform—both negatively and positively. American sportswriter George Plimpton’s Sports! (1978) identifies the “self-satisfying optimism” that permeated the mind of soccer star Pelé under the stress of contest:

In the New York Cosmos’ locker room, it was Pelé’s ritual to lie on the floor with his feet elevated on a bench, one towel neatly folded under his head, another shielding his eyes. Half in, half out of his cubicle, he would begin a sort of waking dream—pleasurable scenes of playing barefoot on Brazilian beaches, playbacks of triumphs of his astonishing career that he planned to emulate. The more important the game, the longer his dream. On the occasion of the first huge crowd the Cosmos drew in New Jersey’s Meadowlands—62,394 people—he spent 25 minutes under his towel and then scored three goals against the Tampa Bay Rowdies.

Idea for Impact: Foreseeing yourself succeed helps you believe that it can happen.

Before you meet with a new sales prospect or when you’re procrastinating on any daunting task, take some time to imagine richly what you will see, taste, hear, smell, and feel once you’re successful.

Use the power of visualization to evoke the future self, who’s achieved your goals. See in your mind’s eye the finish line you’re aiming at.

Visualize what “done” looks like. Imagine the sense of achievement. Envision the relief of being finished. See the fame, rewards, accolades, awards, adulation, satisfaction you’ll receive in your mind’s eye.

Imagine taking action.

Visualize achieving your goal.

Now make it happen.

Take Time to Savor Life’s Little Pleasures

September 27, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Happiness researcher Meik Wiking’s The Art of Making Memories (2019) observes that the Danes are famously happy despite “horrific weather and some of the highest tax returns in the world” because they take time to savor life’s little pleasures. It’s part of Hygge (pronounced “hue-guh,”) the Danish wellness mindset that encourages a spirit of contentedness.

When life gets busy, it’s way too easy to rush through the motions without paying attention to little experiences. Our lives ultimately consist of these tiny movements, one after the other. Fresh sheets. The smell of wet earth after rain. An old favorite song at the right moment. The kindness of a stranger. We take these gifts for granted and brush by them without really breathing in their grace.

Wiking suggests that you can truly rejoice in life by training your brain to focus on the positive in your day-to-day experiences. At the end of each month, reflect on the past month by celebrating the “Happy 10.” Look through the photos on your phone, choose your favorite ten memories, put them in an album or journal, and think about why you enjoy them.

Idea for Impact: Happiness isn’t determined by circumstances. Happiness is what happens when you decide to relish joy.

Savor the beauty and richness of simple pleasures. Take a moment at the end of each day/week/month/year to appreciate what you’re grateful for.

Get Everything Out of Your Head

September 9, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

When there’s so much going on in your head, you’re constantly playing mental ping-pong. All those unfinished tasks can indeed affect your ability to be present with anything that you’re doing.

Sitting down to write out all the things that are weighing on your mind can boot out the clutter. Per the Zeigarnik Effect, interrupted tasks and unfinished thoughts tend to inundate you with a constant stream of reminders. Just the simple act of capturing a task can achieve a sense of completion for the moment.

Clear off your cluttered desk, pour some tea, put on some relaxing music, light a candle, mute the phone, and write down all the things you need to pay attention to. Work stuff, home stuff, kids stuff, paperwork, school stuff, friends stuff—all the stuff! Get it all out of your head.

Writing down everything that’s occupying your mind right now won’t solve your problems, but it makes them evident. This exercise makes it a lot easier to make good intuitive choices about where you should focus now and where it’s okay that you don’t focus now.

Idea for Impact: Stop what you’re doing right now and write down everything you have in your head. Not only will this exercise put in perspective all those things you need to keep track of, but also it’s a great way to reset your day.

Do These Three Things In The Morning For A Better Day

August 12, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Mornings can be challenging to get up and get going, especially when work is home and home is work. If you want to hit the ground running each day, do these three simple things to make your mornings much less frenzied:

1/ Wake up to a clean space. Waking up to a disorganized home, overflowing trash, or a sink full of unwashed dishes can really put a damper on your day. The clutter and untidiness can wind you up if you have no clean cups and plates for your breakfast or you can’t find whatever you need to get your day started. Have a more pleasant and productive morning by taking care of all these chores the night before. Organize together everything you need for the next day.

2/ Make time to exercise. Exercising first thing in the morning doesn’t just perk up your body; it also boosts your spirit and metabolism and leaves you feeling invigorated. If you aren’t a morning-exercise kind of person, try to wake up 15 minutes earlier to do a few simple stretches, pushups, lift hand weights, and pace up and down the stairs a few times. You’ll kick off your day feeling a little more vibrant and refreshed.

3/ Make a to-do list. Start your morning by identifying what your day is going to look like. This way, you’ll feel more in control of your time and get more done. Ask yourself this question, “When the day is over, and I’m getting ready to go to bed, what would I have accomplished today to give me a tremendous sense of achievement?” Prioritize things that have to be at the forefront. Planning is easiest when your mental clarity is sharpest, which, for most people, is first thing in the morning.

A simple morning habit allows you to take control of your emotional state. It sets precedence and intent for the day.

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Living the Good Life

When we try to change everything at once, we set ourselves up for failure

Small Measures, Large Results

Idea for Impact: Good habits happen when we set ourselves up for achievable success.

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Idea for Impact: Each temperament has its own language.

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