Quick hack to boost happiness before we even get into today’s topic: schedule events you look forward to, short and long term.
Apart from my regular Sundy food adventure, I scheduled two trips ahead (both domestic and international) on a whim this week.
I noticed the significant shift of mood: excitement and anticipation. These emotions provided a surge of motivation to be as productive as possible before the trips so I could take some time off (for real).
What are you looking forward to? 💭
Today in 5 minutes or less, you’ll learn:
✔️ How to channel natural motivation
✔️ Prioritise for greatest effectiveness
✔️ How to become your higher self
Doable ideas 💭
“If you want to get your day going, then get your body going. It’s harder for the mind to be sluggish when the body is moving.”
– James Clear
Reflections 🪞
What do you need to focus on to make the rest of 2024 your best year yet?
Mindfulness 🧘🏻♀️
What guides our decisions?
I am convinced that emotions play a huge part in it, regardless of how logical we think we are.
We are always running away from, or towards something.
And I would think that pain is a more effective motivator than reward.
In the past 6 years, I always thought there was a north star guiding me. I thought I found my “purpose” in life.
I got my dream career, I was helping people every day with my strengths and passion.
But..
Sometimes I still felt dissatisfied.
Of course, life is not all sunshines and rainbows no matter how many times you thought you hit jackpot.
I played around with my client population, employment types and lifestyle in the past 2.5 years.
Then it hit me.
Problems are a feature of life.
We will never wake up one day and stop worrying about anything.
So instead of running away from problems, why not take another approach – like finding what problems are worthwhile?
In the past, I would complain, and wasted all my evenings after coming back home from office doing nothing.
It was avoidance. My behaviours gave me the short term comfort I thought I needed.
But what if we flipped the script?
What if we designed a system to make sure our behaviours always reflect what we truly want?
We are emotional creatures, so why not leverage that as a foundation to guide our decisions in an effective manner?
Enter the Top Values Worksheet.
I do this exercise every 3 months to prioritise my values and principles for that particular season in life.
I see acting according to our values something almost an obligation.
It’s stronger than those shallow desires that only gave me short term comfort.
For example, now I’m temporarily giving up “freedom” for “challenging problem”.
Which means I’m getting employed again in a fixed location and capacity with client population I’m interested in, that I think, given my current knowledge, would give me the best chance of becoming my future self.
During my quarterly review, I update the worksheet and decide how I want to operate my life, make decisions and achieve my goals in the next 3 months.
Keep trying, tracking progress and tweaking.
Here are some action points for you if you want to try it out:
- Allow yourself quiet space to reflect
- Define your top 3 values for the next 3-6 months
- Come up with hypothesis, understand that it’s all experiments and you have nothing to lose
- Enjoy the journey 🙂
Keen to learn how to elevate yourself in 5 simple steps? Watch my latest video here 👇🏻
Ideas Worth Pondering 🧠
If you don’t create your own vision and invest attention, time, and energy into it, you will have to live out someone else’s idea of what your life should be like.
– Recovering Overthinker
Video This Week 🎥
These are the 4 types of attention we shall master in 2024 to boost productivity 👇🏻
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