Right Attitudes

Ideas for Impact

Mindfulness

Having What You Want

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Finding Contentment---Wanting is Different from Having

Wanting is different from having.

Wanting is in the future. Having is here; it’s now.

Wanting is based on what could make you happy in the next minute, next week, or next year.

When you don’t let yourself have what you already have, you’re in a trap of your own making. You’re perpetually restless and disengaged. You aren’t present—you’re pursuing a happiness that’s always somewhere else.

Idea for Impact: Don’t be so occupied wanting the next thing that you don’t allow yourself to enjoy what’s in front of you now. You’ll become more content if you look harder for things to be grateful for in the here and now.

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Why You Can’t Relax on Your Next Vacation

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Why You Can't Relax on Your Next Vacation Some managers can’t slow down even on vacation. They keep worrying about their work and won’t come back feeling rested and rejuvenated.

If you feel the added guilt of being away, it may be time for you to look inward and reflect upon your ability to delegate. Don’t bring fear of inadequacy with you on vacation.

Sure, most people responsible for delivering big things find it difficult to be away. Feeling out of control is always stressful. Here’s how to make time off as restful as possible:

  • Schedule 1-hour check-ins every day.
  • Manage your team’s expectations and make sure everyone knows what matters you want to be bothered about.
  • Build-in buffers at both ends. Don’t work right until you leave for the airport and don’t get back to work right off the plane. Schedule an extra day off before you depart and another when you return. Dive back in slowly.

Idea for Impact: Time off should be time off. Get the most out of your time off by unplugging completely.

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The Secret to Happiness in Relationships is Lowering Your Expectations

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The Secret to Happiness in Relationships is Lowering Your Expectations

Happiness depends not on how well things are going, but on whether things are going better or worse than expected. (A case in point: under-promising and over-delivering is a sure way to build customer loyalty.)

Right-size what you can expect from others. You’d be happier to accept other people’s difficult behaviors when you expect less from them. The instant you feel disappointed because another person didn’t come through for you, remind yourself, “It isn’t for me to have those expectations on her.”

The definitive purpose of moderating your expectations of other people isn’t to give them some sort of pass. Instead, it is to help you take off your rose-colored spectacles and appreciate the being-as-is. This change of attitude helps you moderate the constant frustration—even anger—from those around you.

Idea for Impact: If you have high expectations of other people and they disappoint you, you’re giving them permission to dictate how you’ll feel. That’s a lot of power to give to others.

Wondering what to read next?

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  5. The Futility of Attachment to Expected Results

Buddhism is Really a Study of the Self

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Buddhism is Really a Study of the Self When you study Buddhism, you study yourself. You figure out the nature of your mind.

You focus not on some dogmatic view—the Buddha made no claims to being a prophet, and Buddhism owes its origin to no divine revelation. Instead, Buddhism emphasizes more practical matters, such as how to lead your life and how to integrate your mind.

The Buddhist path isn’t about being a proper Buddhist or comprehending the Buddhist creed. It isn’t something to believe in; it’s something to do. It’s about understanding who you are and how you can realize more fully your potential—not as a Buddhist, but as a human being.

Idea for Impact: “Who am I?” is a pivotal question of Buddhism. The Buddhist path encourages you to awaken to liberation.

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A Hack to Resist Temptation: The 15-Minute Rule

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A Hack to Resist Temptation: Self-Control is Challenging When you’re faced with a temptation, e.g. when you have a sugar-craving, try this 15-Minute Rule: Commit to not giving in for 15 minutes. Take yourself away from the stimulus that led to the temptation.

With any luck, the enticement will wear off. At least it’ll become more manageable to control. If at all possible, wait another 15 minutes.

Increasing your awareness of your temptations and refusing to submit to them impulsively is the key to changing behavior.

Idea for Impact: Self-control in the face of urges and cravings is a tricky thing. Even a simple distraction can break the trance.

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Let Go of Toxic Friendships

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Let Go of Toxic Friendships Friendships are an integral ingredient of happiness, and they often help you feel better—but not always. Some friendships are just bad for you.

Occasionally, you can fall into the trap of hanging onto unhealthy relationships because they’re familiar—even when you’re being constantly let down. Worse yet, ‘ambivalent relationships’ can cause you more anxiety than being with people you actively dislike.

It takes two to define a friendship. Relationships are grounded in social exchange, and with unbalanced friendships, the other draws more from the “friendship bank” over time than they care to put into it. If you’ve set clear expectations and boundaries, and the other isn’t consistently sticking to them, perhaps it’s time to re-evaluate your relationship.

What you get out of your friendships ultimately affects your physical and emotional health. It pays to focus your attention on strengthening healthy relationships and letting go of toxic friendships.

Luckily, most friendships are not too difficult to escape. Downgrade the friendship. Make yourself less accessible. If the relationship isn’t very close, merely drift apart.

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The Best Breathing Exercise for Anxiety

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Deep Diaphragmatic Breathing: The Best Breathing Exercise for Anxiety

Diaphragmatic breathing (also called belly breathing and abdominal breathing) engages the diaphragm—that large, dome-shaped muscle at the base of the lungs, separating the chest cavity from the abdomen.

James Baltzell’s Meditation for the Rest of Us (2009) suggests observing sleeping babies and following their lead: draw air deep through your nose into their lungs, expanding the pulmonary cavity that houses your heart and lungs. The diaphragm moves down and fills your lungs with oxygen. New York-Presbyterian Hospital’s Dr. Chiti Parikh recommends starting out lying down so that the surface beneath can give you feedback on whether you’re breathing back into the back of your body:

Lie on your back, relax your muscles, and place one hand on the chest and the other on the belly. Take long, slow breaths in and out through your nose, and watch your hands as they move. Breathe in for four seconds, and then out for six. Over time, lengthen your exhales. Notice how, with shallow breaths, the chest moves, but with deep breathing, the belly moves too.

Don’t get aggravated as thoughts of worry or anxiety enter the mind. Don’t quell your unquiet mind. Gently acknowledge the thoughts and let your attention slip from them.

Idea for Impact: Learning to breathe deep, focus your attention, and relax is a skill can help subdue stress and stay calm. Practice this exercise whenever you’re anxious and realize quick, shallow breathing. As with any skill, your ability to anchor your mind in the present moment will improve with practice.

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It’s Not What You See; It’s How You See It

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The Power of Perspective

Try to consider the sunny side of a situation rather than focusing on what’s wrong with it.

If it’s pouring rain, don’t upset yourself over plans hampered or stress about getting drenched. Instead, relish the splendor of landscape under the grey sky, delight in the pattering noise of the rain, and savor how the flowers have their heads as if to rest. Appreciate how rain is the great facilitator of life. And use this as a perfect excuse to curl up with a good book and chill out.

It’s not what you see; it’s how you see it.

Got a demanding new boss? Bring to mind all the things you can learn from her—including what not to do as a manager.

Reframing allows you an expanded view of your reality. You can move your experience from a negative frame to a more hopeful one, filled with opportunities.

How you frame something can change everything. When you change your point of view, the facts of the situation remain the same. But the shift in your emotional tone changes the meaning that you give to the situation.

Idea for Impact: Practice cognitive control. Learn how to put things in perspective.

When something or somebody annoys you, shift your attention. Ask, “What’s right about this? What’s to be appreciated about this?” Imagine the best possible outcomes.

Reframing an event or stimulus changes your emotional response to it—and it helps keep stress in check.

Changing the way you see the world is not a denial. It doesn’t imply naive optimism. Instead, it is the purging of mental pollutants such as dislike and anger—even aggression—that poison the mind and disable you from finding refuge in presence.

In Buddhism, the opposite of pleasure is not pain but delusion.

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Change Your Perspective, Change Your Reactions

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Change Your Perspective, Change Your Reactions From the eighth-century Buddhist philosopher Śāntideva’s Bodhicaryavatara (“Entrance to the Path of Awakening,”) a translation from Stephen Batchelor’s A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life (1979:)

Where would I possibly find enough leather
With which to cover the surface of the earth?
But just leather on the soles of my shoes
Is equivalent to covering the earth with it
 
Likewise it is not possible for me
To restrain the external course of things
But should I restrain this mind of mine
What would be the need to restrain all else?

A powerful reminder that you can’t magically make the whole world and its people run smooth and easy, but you can reorient your heart and mind to change your perspective and endure the bumps that you’ll encounter.

Idea for Impact: If something isn’t to your liking, change your liking or find something else of your liking. The willingness to adjust is perhaps the single most critical human faculty.

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Imagine a Better Response

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Choose a better response: Don't react without thinking

In the Discourses of Epictetus (c.108 CE,) Arrian reports, “I must die: must I, then die groaning too? I must be fettered: and wailing too. I must go into exile? Does anyone, then, keep me from going a smile and cheerful and serene?”

You may not choose the circumstance, but you can choose your response to it.

Choose your response, and you can rise above what holds you down.

But how?

Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning (1959) proposes, “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

When circumstances pull for some particular reaction, choose to respond instead.

Don’t react without thinking. Don’t accept reflexive reactions. Instead, learn to become aware that there is a “space” before responding. Learn to recognize, increase, and make use of this “space.”

That awareness ushers a release from the dictates of both external and internal pressures.

Choose a better response. With that, you can find inner happiness.

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  4. Expressive Writing Can Help You Heal
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