A good routine is generally energizing, but when you miss having your matcha tea or meditation one morning, it’s easy to kick yourself and get discouraged.
Which is when I remind myself of this visual. Thank you, Harsh Darji. 🙏
Here are a few tips that helped me get through times when I felt lost or hopeless. This is my practical, step-by-step guide, hard-earned and tested in real life.
Decide what you want. Pick a small goal for now — anything useful. Take the pressure off. Just pick something to work on that you can do.
Think short-term and what’s in your control. What can do you today, tomorrow, this week, this month? You can act most effectively in this timeframe.
Narrow your focus: Do one (main) thing at a time. You can’t do everything all at once. Once you finish a major goal, you can move on to the next with even more focus, having the first thing done.
👉 It takes practice.
Visualize the outcome you want. Close your eyes, breath, and picture in vivid detail what you want to happen. This may sound silly, but it can help motivate you and sharpen your focus.
Work towards the outcome you want in small steps every day. Keep your current daily goals modest; keeping a backlog of stuff to do later is helpful.
👉 Doing Great Things is Boring 🤷🏻♂️.
Place your happiness in the progress towards the results, not in the result itself. Steady work in itself will make you feel better.
👉 “The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance; the wise grows it under his feet.”
Yes, work towards an outcome, but don’t get attached to it; you can’t control everything. Focus on what you can do right now and take pride in your effort, however it may turn out.
Keep your ego in check. Do things because they go with your values and goals and not to look good or to avoid judgement.
Your happiness depends only on you, not on external people, places, or things.
👉 The Secrets to Happiness (Distilled)
Enjoy nourishing foods any time you want: water, tea, bone broth, fruit, avocado, nuts, yogurt…
Try some calming sounds. Listen to some ambient music, nature sounds, movie soundtracks, whatever works. You can find these in your music app or even YouTube.
Freshen up your environment. Get outside for some sunlight and fresh air. Open a window. Light a scented candle or incense. Clean and tidy your home.
Move. Walk, stretch, exercise every day. Find an exercise (or two) that works for you. 🧘🏻
It takes practice.☝️
👉 Super Summary: Think Like a Monk
Ask yourself – is this useful? If you find yourself having unhelpful, repetitive thoughts, then nip them in the bud. These are usually about a past or future that you can’t control and can’t solve by thinking.
Take a few deep breaths, then work on calming yourself.
Focus your mind on a game – Wordle, a crossword puzzle, or a chill app like isowords, Townscaper, paper.io, or MiniMetro.
Work through your thoughts and feelings with journaling. Don’t hold back. Get it all out – the good, the bad, and the ugly. Or just write a haiku about your day to make it more fun. 🤷🏻♂️
Meditate: Clear and observe your mind non-judgmentally. Scan your body, focus on breathing, visualize success, give gratitude, find empathy for others.
Fear makes you do stupid things and must be conquered.
👉 “Fear is the mind-killer.”… “Move, but don’t move the way fear makes you move.”.
Above all, keep faith in yourself. ✌️
I accidentally subscribed to this visual book insights app called Lucid. It promised “Read faster. Remember more.” so I had to try it. 🤷🏻♂️
Neglecting to cancel my free trial (oops!), I now have a full year of this service, so I might as well get the most out of it.
So this is my first “super summary” (a summary of the summary) for books I find interesting. You can see if you’re interested in reading the real thing. (audiobook | “book” book).
👉 Luckily, we can take some useful lessons from monks without actually being a monk. 😜
A monk has an inward focus and moves past pain and anxiety, leading to a happier and more meaningful life.
A monk focuses on core issues, long-term vision, and strives to find meaning. This is in contrast to a “monkey” mind, which is distracted, overwhelmed, and focusing on temporary fixes.
Our core values define who we are and the meaning of our life. Our values should come from within rather than from other people’s influence.
We need to figure out what we’re all about so that we can focus our priorities and goals.
👉 This fits with some things the Savvy Psychologist said about values and meaning.
👉 This section reminds me of the idea that people’s criticism often says more about themselves than the person they are criticizing. 🧐
If you think of others negatively, you think of yourself negatively.
To break this cycle: identity your negative thoughts towards others, stop, and reframe them in a more empathetic, specific, and helpful way.
If you think of others more positively, you think of yourself more positively and make better choices.
👉 I like this section because I learned a while back that decisions driven by fear generally do not turn out well. 😱
Identify your deepest underlying fears. Acknowledge these fears and embrace them.
Then detach from your fears to make smart, independent, intentional choices.
👉 Despite this book calling for an early morning routine, I’m personally finding a relaxing nighttime routine especially useful. 😴
Wake up early to give yourself time to have a positive boost to your day. Use this time to be grateful, read & learn, meditate, and exercise.
Get to bed early and plan how you will conquer the next day.
👉 I love this section because of the wolf analogy. 🤩
In each of our minds are two wolves battling with each other for control. One wolf is consumed by fear, anger, insecurity, and ego. The other is driven by love, kindness, humility, and positivity.
You can feed one of them (yes the good one!) by giving it your time and energy.
This internal battle is normal, and we should view it as external to us. Use meditation to observe your mind and better understand what might be triggering any negative thoughts.
Reframe negative thoughts in a positive way, changing problems and fears into positive actions.
I just stumbled upon this idea myself and love that it’s being validated here. ☺️
If you can’t sleep, then don’t stress about it. Just lay there and meditate. Or simply lay still and relax without trying to sleep. It’s low-stress and almost as good as actual sleep.
👉 Can’t Sleep? Try ‘Quiet Wakefulness’ Instead
Actually, with meditation it’s better in some ways such as in increase in “relaxation, an uptick in creativity, a decrease in depressive symptoms“.
The way I look at this is, if I wake up at 3:00 am, this is a great chance to mediate (laying-down style) with no time pressure at all. All sleep-stress goes away, and it feels pretty luxurious. It’s best to have some basic meditation practice down first, of course. But nothing fancy is required.
Most of the time I fall back asleep. But if not, I’m still getting meaningful rest and feelin’ good!
Okay, I don’t take the Charkas too literally, but I do think they’re on to something. Here’s a quick guide. They’re great for guiding meditation.
👉 The Complete Guide To The 7 Chakras For Beginners
Mental Break Town 