The more I meditate about it, the more convinced I am. There are, among various, 5 factors that are decisive when determining how we live our lives.
And no, it’s not the country where you live in or how old you are, neither the era you are living in nor you socio economical status. Of course all these set a certain context to our lives and work as a starting point, but these are not the most important factors that define how we live our life.
It’s definitely not a matter of how many material things you own that defines how happy you are, neither is it how much you suffer that determines how spiritual your life is.
It’s also not how many times you go to church which determines how many blessings you deserve in your life, nor what’s your education level that defines how happy you are with your professional career.
I believe, no, I know that what really defines how each of us lives our lives are 5 factors that are linked to each other:
1- Our thoughts: what we let live in our mind.
2- Our talk: what we let leave our mind.
3- What we watch, read and listen to: what we let into our mind.
4- Our actions: how we behave.
5- The people that we surround ourselves with.
Factor #1: Our thoughts: what we let live in our mind.
“Everything we create, we do it twice: when we think about it and when we actually do it”, they say.
What is the very first thought you have each morning? Is it what a pain it is, having to wake up that early just to go to work and spend the day with people you don’t really like? Or are you thankful for the opportunity to live another day so you can keep walking towards your dreams?
Whenever you face a problem at home or at work, do you keep asking why you, what did you do to deserve that? Or do you think that it is a challenge that you need to overcome and a lesson you need to learn and that, just like everything else in life, it will pass and, along with the pain it caused you, it will stay behind as you move forward in life with a lesson learned and a new set of tools that will be useful for the challenges ahead?
Definitely, the quality of our thoughts is automatically projected on to the quality of our life. Some times, especially at the beginning, it is really difficult to monitor the type of thoughts we have. (Hint: the average human brain has over 60 thousand thoughts in a normal day), even harder when we are used to complaining, however an exercise that always work to improve the quality of our thoughts is GIVING THANKS each and every morning when we wake up. Thanks for the gift of a new day, thanks because we are healthy and full of energy to live it fully, thanks because we will share another day with the people we love, thanks because we have a job to go to, thanks simply because we have a life to live.
Another great exercise that really helps align our thoughts is “Creative Visualization”.
This is something that even some of the top sports stars in world practice and it is very easy to do.
It’s all about drawing a mental picture of how we want to live our life. You can do it as big as to include all aspects of your life, adjust it to what you want for a special day or be as specific as Tiger Woods drawing a mental picture just before making one of his greatest shots, picturing each movement, each sensation from making a swing to the ball dropping into the green.
To some people this exercise sounds unreal or like it is too much work, but it really isn’t.
On the contrary it is absolutely real, because just like an architect needs to draw the plans of the building he is about to build, each person needs to be the “architect” of their life and draw the plans for what they want for it.
It’s also not that much work. What’s hard is really figuring out what you want out of life, but once you do this it’s easy to put it in paper. It can be a drawing, a list or a story, something you can revisit each morning to remind you how you want to live your life.
Why every morning? Ever since I read this for the first time I asked the same question. Today, after a good couple of years of practicing it and after seeing its positive results, I understand that, for me, being thankful and reading my life plan every day not only helps me focus on that plan but it also reminds me of how I want to behave each day to project that life. It also reminds me of the other 4 factors that help determine how I live my life, but I guess I can talk about these in the next post, in the mean time, think about it, share your comments and tell us: How do you want to live your life?
And no, it’s not the country where you live in or how old you are, neither the era you are living in nor you socio economical status. Of course all these set a certain context to our lives and work as a starting point, but these are not the most important factors that define how we live our life.
It’s definitely not a matter of how many material things you own that defines how happy you are, neither is it how much you suffer that determines how spiritual your life is.
It’s also not how many times you go to church which determines how many blessings you deserve in your life, nor what’s your education level that defines how happy you are with your professional career.
I believe, no, I know that what really defines how each of us lives our lives are 5 factors that are linked to each other:
1- Our thoughts: what we let live in our mind.
2- Our talk: what we let leave our mind.
3- What we watch, read and listen to: what we let into our mind.
4- Our actions: how we behave.
5- The people that we surround ourselves with.
Factor #1: Our thoughts: what we let live in our mind.
“Everything we create, we do it twice: when we think about it and when we actually do it”, they say.
What is the very first thought you have each morning? Is it what a pain it is, having to wake up that early just to go to work and spend the day with people you don’t really like? Or are you thankful for the opportunity to live another day so you can keep walking towards your dreams?
Whenever you face a problem at home or at work, do you keep asking why you, what did you do to deserve that? Or do you think that it is a challenge that you need to overcome and a lesson you need to learn and that, just like everything else in life, it will pass and, along with the pain it caused you, it will stay behind as you move forward in life with a lesson learned and a new set of tools that will be useful for the challenges ahead?
Definitely, the quality of our thoughts is automatically projected on to the quality of our life. Some times, especially at the beginning, it is really difficult to monitor the type of thoughts we have. (Hint: the average human brain has over 60 thousand thoughts in a normal day), even harder when we are used to complaining, however an exercise that always work to improve the quality of our thoughts is GIVING THANKS each and every morning when we wake up. Thanks for the gift of a new day, thanks because we are healthy and full of energy to live it fully, thanks because we will share another day with the people we love, thanks because we have a job to go to, thanks simply because we have a life to live.
Another great exercise that really helps align our thoughts is “Creative Visualization”.
This is something that even some of the top sports stars in world practice and it is very easy to do.
It’s all about drawing a mental picture of how we want to live our life. You can do it as big as to include all aspects of your life, adjust it to what you want for a special day or be as specific as Tiger Woods drawing a mental picture just before making one of his greatest shots, picturing each movement, each sensation from making a swing to the ball dropping into the green.
To some people this exercise sounds unreal or like it is too much work, but it really isn’t.
On the contrary it is absolutely real, because just like an architect needs to draw the plans of the building he is about to build, each person needs to be the “architect” of their life and draw the plans for what they want for it.
It’s also not that much work. What’s hard is really figuring out what you want out of life, but once you do this it’s easy to put it in paper. It can be a drawing, a list or a story, something you can revisit each morning to remind you how you want to live your life.
Why every morning? Ever since I read this for the first time I asked the same question. Today, after a good couple of years of practicing it and after seeing its positive results, I understand that, for me, being thankful and reading my life plan every day not only helps me focus on that plan but it also reminds me of how I want to behave each day to project that life. It also reminds me of the other 4 factors that help determine how I live my life, but I guess I can talk about these in the next post, in the mean time, think about it, share your comments and tell us: How do you want to live your life?
2 comentarios:
I was listening to a radio show this morning about social entrepreneurship. One of the strongest themes was to "do what you promised".
Actions speak louder than words, but they also require commitment. That's what I push myself towards - doing.
Thanks Gavin! Great hearing from you! Yes, I totally agree. Delivering on your promises is key to actually create the kind of life f we allow ourselves to "let this promise pass just this once" pretty soon we start missing every other promises we've made and the sad thing is not to loose credibilty among those around us but loosing but not believing in ourselves.
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