Right Attitudes

Ideas for Impact

Mindfulness

The Secret to Happiness in Relationships is Lowering Your Expectations

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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.

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  2. Change Your Perspective, Change Your Reactions
  3. Affection Is No Defense: Good Intentions Make Excellent Alibis
  4. Release Your Cows … Be Happy
  5. The Surprising Power of Low Expectations: The Secret Weapon to Happiness?

Buddhism is Really a Study of the Self

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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 fully realize 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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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 tricky. Even a simple distraction can break the trance.

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  4. Conquer That Initial Friction
  5. 5 Minutes to Greater Productivity [Two-Minute Mentor #11]

Let Go of Toxic Friendships

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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 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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  5. The Likeability Factor: Whose “Do Not Pair” List Includes You?

The Best Breathing Exercise for Anxiety

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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.

In Meditation for the Rest of Us (2009,) James Baltzell 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 that 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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  4. If Meditation Isn’t Working For You, Try Intermittent Silence
  5. Anger is the Hardest of the Negative Emotions to Subdue

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

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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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  1. Imagine a Better Response
  2. How to … Stop Getting Defensive
  3. Cope with Anxiety and Stop Obsessive Worrying by Creating a Worry Box
  4. Expressive Writing Can Help You Heal
  5. Summary of Richard Carlson’s ‘Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff’

Change Your Perspective, Change Your Reactions

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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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  3. Begin with Yourself
  4. Learn to Manage Your Negative Emotions and Yourself
  5. The More You Can Manage Your Emotions, the More Effective You’ll Be

Imagine a Better Response

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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.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. It’s Not What You See; It’s How You See It
  2. Get Everything Out of Your Head
  3. Cope with Anxiety and Stop Obsessive Worrying by Creating a Worry Box
  4. Expressive Writing Can Help You Heal
  5. Summary of Richard Carlson’s ‘Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff’

Get Rid of Relationship Clutter

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Don’t hold on to relationships that aren’t supportive or beautiful—they’re robbing you of joy and nourishment. They’re exhausting your resources for the relationships that do matter.

Letting go of relationship clutter isn’t about tossing people out like tatty pairs of shoes. It’s about getting reflective if our relationships honor our soul self. Is there respect, love, and a sense of wanting the best for each other?

Find ways to distance yourself from relationships that drain your soul. Don’t burn bridges, though. Don’t hold onto every issue or argument. It’s more gracious—and better for you—just walk away, head held high, mouth shut. You’ll be glad you did it that way.

Idea for Impact: To get rid of clutter is to make room for more supportive and nurturing relationships.

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  2. The Secret to Happiness in Relationships is Lowering Your Expectations
  3. How to … Break the Complaint Habit
  4. Change Your Perspective, Change Your Reactions
  5. The More You Can Manage Your Emotions, the More Effective You’ll Be

Stop Dieting, Start Savoring

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Research suggests that excluding entire food groups, banning your favorite foods, forcing yourself to count calories, and measuring success by a number on a scale may actually make you want to eat more. Restrictive dieting can slow your metabolism down, making it even harder to lose weight over the long term.

You’re more likely to be successful at keeping weight off if you lose weight gradually and steadily. Be more mindful of what you eat and how you eat.

There’s nothing wrong with enjoying your favorite foods and indulging in your cravings for cookies, potato chips, or ice cream. All you have to do is cut back. Practice awareness by slowing down and thinking about what you’re eating and why you’re eating it.

Don’t gulp your food; you’ll overeat before you realize that you’re full. Instead, rest between bites. Take time to chew your food thoroughly. You really don’t need as much food as you think you do.

When you eat out, keep your food-mindfulness on the right track. Keep hunger under control beforehand. Don’t skip meals. Control portion size. Share your meal or take half of it home.

Idea for Impact: Eating should be a pleasurable activity. No food is inherently good or bad, and there’s no need to build an adversarial relationship with food.

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  4. Beware the Opportunity Cost of Meditating
  5. Six Powerful Reasons to Eat Slowly and Mindfully