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Rumination
#84

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It's Time to Quit Chewing on Your Mental Cud

While we’re on a roll with how to reduce our emotional suffering, let’s talk about something you want to quit doing: ruminating. Science says that the unhappiest among us (and each of us in our least happy moments) tend to ruminate about whatever’s bothering us. I find it helpful t...

+1 inspired by Note: Your Brain at Work

Name It to Tame It
#83

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How to Tame the Gremlins

In our last +1, we talked about the fact that Suffering = Pain x Resistance. I briefly mentioned one way to reduce our suffering—simply labeling the difficult emotion you may be experiencing. Let’s talk about that a little more. This is one of the key practices of mindfulness. Resear...

+1 inspired by Note: Mindsight

Suffering = Pain x Resistance
#82

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An Important Lesson on How to Reduce Suffering

In her great book Self-Compassion, Kristin Neff shares a little equation that can help us reduce our suffering. It goes like this: Suffering = Pain x Resistance. Here’s what we need to know: Pain, as the Dalai Lama tells us, is inevitabl...

+1 inspired by Note: Self-Compassion

Getting Started vs. Getting Finished
#81

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A Good Idea on How to Deal with Procrastination

If you’re feeling a little less than motivated and tempted to procrastinate on stuff, you might find this distinction helpful. There’s a big difference between getting yourself started and feeling like you need to get it finished. Tal Ben-Shahar is a teacher and...

+1 inspired by Note: Solving the Procrastination Puzzle

Time Blocks
#80

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The #1 Power Tool for Great Days and a Great Life (You Using Them?)

Continuing our theme of making TODAY (and every day!) a Masterpiece Day, let’s take a quick look at Time Blocks. Gary Keller wrote The ONE Thing. He also created the largest real estate agency in the world. In his great little book, he tells us how important it is to ruthlessly f...

+1 inspired by Note: The ONE Thing

Today's the Day
#79

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What to Do When a (Daimon) Reporter Follows You Around All Day

Here’s another way to create a Masterpiece Day filled with you at your best. In Die Empty, Todd Henry tells us to imagine that from the moment we wake up to the moment we go to sleep we have a reporter following us around taking notes on every little thing we do. After tracking o...

+1 inspired by Note: Die Empty

AM + PM Bookends
#78

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How to Create Masterpiece Days: Start Here!

In The Compound Effect, Darren Hardy makes the important point that we have more control over the very beginnings of our day and the very ends of our days than we do over the middle of the days. He calls those “Bookends.” If we want to create a template for a Masterpiece Day...

+1 inspired by Note: The Compound Effect

Dust
#77

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A Secret Tool to Master Non-Attachment

Let’s chat about something called “Dust.” It’s a secret tool I recently learned from Phil Stutz. Basic context: Remember Apollo, our patron god of philosophy? He was an archer. Like him, we need to have a clear target at which we’re aiming our life force. We’re ALL I...

+1 inspired by Note: The Tools

Victim vs. Creator
#76

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Two Questions: "Why Me?" vs. "What Do I Want?"

David Emerald wrote a great book called The Power of TED. In it, he makes the distinction between being a Victim vs. being a Creator. The Victim walks around complaining about everything and asking unhelpful things like, “Why is this happening?” and “Why me?” The ...

+1 inspired by Note: The Power of TED

Simplify the Battlefield
#75

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Wisdom from a SEAL Commander on What to Do in the Chaos of Life and War

In our last +1 we talked about Spinny Fingers and how to quickly regain our equanimity when life spins us around. Here’s another way. Mark Divine is a former Commander in the Navy SEALs. He tells us that in the chaos of war, elite SEALs are taught to “simplify the battlefield.”...

+1 inspired by Note: The Way of the SEAL

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Rumination #84 Get instant access to all +1's! Join nearly 10,000 members in the 1,000-Day Epic Optimizing Challenge and start optimizing your life today. Join Now

Name It to Tame It #83 Get instant access to all +1's! Join nearly 10,000 members in the 1,000-Day Epic Optimizing Challenge and start optimizing your life today. Join Now

Suffering = Pain x Resistance #82 Get instant access to all +1's! Join nearly 10,000 members in the 1,000-Day Epic Optimizing Challenge and start optimizing your life today. Join Now

Getting Started vs. Getting Finished #81 Get instant access to all +1's! Join nearly 10,000 members in the 1,000-Day Epic Optimizing Challenge and start optimizing your life today. Join Now

Time Blocks #80 Get instant access to all +1's! Join nearly 10,000 members in the 1,000-Day Epic Optimizing Challenge and start optimizing your life today. Join Now

Today's the Day #79 Get instant access to all +1's! Join nearly 10,000 members in the 1,000-Day Epic Optimizing Challenge and start optimizing your life today. Join Now

AM + PM Bookends #78 Get instant access to all +1's! Join nearly 10,000 members in the 1,000-Day Epic Optimizing Challenge and start optimizing your life today. Join Now

Dust #77 Get instant access to all +1's! Join nearly 10,000 members in the 1,000-Day Epic Optimizing Challenge and start optimizing your life today. Join Now

Victim vs. Creator #76 Get instant access to all +1's! Join nearly 10,000 members in the 1,000-Day Epic Optimizing Challenge and start optimizing your life today. Join Now

Simplify the Battlefield #75 Get instant access to all +1's! Join nearly 10,000 members in the 1,000-Day Epic Optimizing Challenge and start optimizing your life today. Join Now

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