This may seem a little contrary, but stick with us. There are so many people that spend their entire life in the planning phase that life passes them by. When they are ready to put their plans in action they are too old or life has provided a reason not to do it. It could be a health challenge or a situational change.
Life should be a balance of planning and action. Do not let life pass you by while you are planning to start it.
Most of you reading this will be tempted to say, “I would not like suffering at all.” That would be an ideal life. It is also quite unrealistic. In everyone’s life, there is suffering. We do not get to choose when, or what kind we get.
What we do have a choice of is what we do with that suffering. We can grow from suffering. Like the mythical phoenix rising from the ashes. The other option is to let it destroy us. Shatter our hopes and dreams.
Suffering gives us few options. The one that we do have is a powerful one. That is what we decide the meaning of that suffering will be.
Last post we discussed how small actions and habits can have disastrous results. That was a little negative. Although still very true. Today, we are going to look at the opposite. We are going to look at good habits and how, given time, they can transform our life positively.
To do this, let us look at a metaphor that might help put it in perspective. I do not play golf. I’m not sure if you do or not. We can all appreciate the basics. You got a ball and try to get it into a hole several hundred yards away.
At the point of contact, a slight change in the direction you hit the ball, even millimeters, can have a huge impact as to where the ball lands. Think of it. If you change the angle 2 millimeters and follow the ball several hundred yards, it will be in a dramatically different spot.
That’s often how positive actions and habits work in our life. We take one small action. Perhaps it is cutting out drinking our daily Coca-Cola. Nothing much happens right away. We follow that change for several months, or a year, and we discover our pants fit better and we have less inflammation.
Think of these examples when you make a small change. You might have to stick with it a while. After which, it may lead to a huge impact. Just like the millimeter and the golf ball.
Where I live, right now is tick season. To be honest, every season it seems we are told is tick season. Ticks are nasty relatives of the aracnid (spider) family. They live on tall grass and hop on your body when you brush against them. The worst thing is what their bite can do. Ticks carry diseases such as rocky mountain fever and Lyme disease. These can, on occasion, even be fatal.
As my mother and I hiked through the park this afternoon, we pondered just such a thing. My mother remarked, “Isn’t it crazy how something so small can cause such damage?” It immediately started me thinking how true this is of many things in life.
Bad habits may seem small and insignificant, but can really add up. Say you throw a piece of trash on the ground. One wrapper, not such a big deal? If everyone in the world thought the same way, that would be roughly 8 billion pieces of trash! Just from one small wrapper.
The same holds true with people. Some people, dare I say, share many qualities with the tick. Their ‘bite’ may seem harmless at first, but it can have impacts that could end up fatal to your goals and even you! How about the person always telling you that it is OK not to eat healthy or worry about your fitness. At first, it may even seem nice. You end up with lower standards and a stomach as big as your pile of excuses!
When it comes to friends who drink too much, or even drink and drive, it can be far more serious. Small things can have such an impact on our life that we must remain diligent in staying alert to them. Next post we will take a look at another example, but in the positive. Until then, watch your habits and watch out for ticks!
To many of you this may sound cliche or, at the very least, like some positive thinking nonsense. I do suppose it could be a little of both. That does not make it any less true. Much like anything in life, familiarity breeds contempt. Almost nobody I know enjoys going to work. If they lost their job, however, they would be happy to have an opportunity to earn money. Once back at a job, how long before they start to grumble about ‘having to get up early’? I am guilty of this myself.
My lovely lady is one of the most vocal critics of going to the gym. I think she spends so much time dreading it she might burn more calories doing that than working out. She did put this whole thing in great perspective the other day. After some introspection and contemplation, she looked at me and said, “I hate going to the gym, but I love how I feel when I leave.” Meaning going through all the sweating, moving your body when you do not want to and sore muscles are not enjoyable. Leaving knowing that you put in the effort and are one step closer to a healthier you is a great feeling. Wisely, she focuses on the future to be able to propel her to take productive action. It is a way to trick overcome her brain’s desire for inaction.
Speaking of working out. Recently, I sustained an injury that will prevent me from doing some things that I both enjoy and need to do. Now that I cannot do them, guess who is motivated to do them? Of course after the surgery I am going to be so motivated to go back to doing these exercises, right? That may be true in the short term, but after a few days of soreness from starting over, I will probably go back to dreading them. How do we change this to a constant state of motivation to do the things we know we need to do?
Many people ask how to stay motivated to take the actions they need to. I have written several books on the subject myself. It is the wrong question to be asking. Yes, it is good to have more motivation. Yes, it is good to find new and different ways to be motivated. Even with all of that, we will never be motivated all of the time. Not to mention, for most of us, motivation is a depreciating asset. As discussed in the earlier examples, you can be motivated at the start, but as time goes on that motivation becomes more difficult to maintain. What we need is a change in perception.
Inky Johnson, one of my favorite speakers, says that perception drives performance every day of the week. He emphasizes how important why we do what we do is. I couldn’t agree more. If you are working just for yourself, that is one kind of motivation. If you have a spouse and family depending on you, that is an entirely different kind of motivation. There is a difference between someone who works hard and a hard worker. Someone who works hard will do so if the boss is watching or the pay is right. Someone who is a hard worker will work hard because that is their character. That is the promise they made to themselves. How about you? What is your perception on doing the difficult things in life?
Last post we looked at the kind of people you do not want in your life. Let us switch gears and take a look at the kind of people you do want in your life and the kind of person you should strive to become. The quote above from Epictetus gives us the formula. That is to be some who can walk away from desires in order to achieve goals. I am paraphrasing, but that is the lesson there. If your goal is to become healthier, but you often desire doughnuts and ice cream, you will have to choose one of them.
Here is another consideration. If we are constantly giving into our desires, they in a sense become our masters. If you cannot say ‘no’ to the doughnut in the breakroom, then you will forever be working on developing a healthy eating plan. That is not to say an occasional doughnut will ruin everything. What we are saying here is that you need to develop the will, the focus and the self-discipline to turn down immediate gratification in order to reach a long-term goal. That seems rather logical, but in today’s world, it is a rare quality.
Another prime example is getting hooked on social media. You know you are supposed to clean the kitchen, but you will take a break to watch just a few videos. An hour later there you sit, phone in hand with a dirty kitchen. It takes roughly 20 minutes for the brain to focus on an activity. Meaning every time you take that break, you are resetting the clock. Normal adult brains to require a quick reset around the 90 minute mark. It should not last too long, or you may find yourself unable to get started again. You must be able to discipline yourself or you will not achieve many goals in life. If it helps, make deals with your desires. You will watch that otter video after the kitchen is clean. You can have a doughnut after you complete your workout or reach a certain goal weight.
To achieve anything great in life, you must be able to delay immediate gratification to fit the long-term goal. How you do this is up to you. Doing it is not an option. Ancient philosophers knew it. In today’s world, it is even more important. Feel free to share your secrets for staying focused.
There are a some people who call me a ‘motivational speaker’. Nice title. I hope that I do motivate some to take actions that will allow them to become the best version of themselves. I look at myself more as a coach, or even a servant. Using what I have learned, and continue to learn, to help others improve their life as I have.
If you met me recently, or at least in this stage of my life, you would hardly guess the person I used to be. There were many roles I filled. I was a bartender. I sang in a rock band. Perhaps it was being thrust into the limelight. It could have been the praise, earned or not, that was given me. At one point I could not have been further from being an enlightened person. I am not attempting to paint myself in a bad light here. What I am doing my best to convey is the fact that I know what it is like to live a life that is…shall we say ‘self-focused’.
It took many different tools, strategies and people to help to get me where I am now. That story could be an entire book by itself. Much of it is contained in my books that you can find by searching ‘Neil Panosian’ on Amazon. Being introduced to self-improvement world by accidentally purchasing an infomercial at 3a.m., to more recently falling in love with a lady who both keeps me guessing and keeps me in line, have all contributed to becoming a better version of myself.
Speaking of that amazing lady, she is behind a lot of my work. She authored the foreword to my second book. She also convinced me to start my YouTube channel. One of the first videos we did was about writing your own eulogy. The idea came to me after my cousin was killed by a drunk driver. You can even hear the emotion in my voice while we are filming the video. It was filmed at a cemetery. The idea was to write your own eulogy. This is helpful in so many ways! I break in down in detail in my second book, Living the Dream. The main benefit is to decide what you want your legacy to be. The side-effect of that is that you can tell if the actions you are taking right now are taking you in that direction or away from it. After that video, and some more intense life-altering events, I took a hard look in the mirror. I was not thrilled with what I saw.
Determined to become a man I could be proud of, I began to change many things in my life. With the support of my lovely lady and other friends and family, you have the man behind the keyboard today. Am I where I want to be? Not at all, but at least I know where I want to go and take actions to get there. You can do the same. It doesn’t happen overnight, but it will not happen unless you begin! After a brief flirtation with death, the level of urgency to become that man whose portrait you will stop at became more urgent. Death is certain, but the hour uncertain they say. None of us know how much time we have to craft our legacy. All that I can promise you is that it is less time than you had when you started to read this. Take action now! Those in your life deserve it. Your future deserves it. Your legacy deserves it.
Who would not want to be a superior person. This does not mean being ‘better than someone’. It means being better than you were. Holding yourself to a higher standard. These three things can help us get there. We will take them in reverse order. The first is Act with Virtue. This is really not as complicated as it seems. To understand how to do this, focus on the last word – virtue. What do you consider a virtue? Honesty? Than do not tell lies or spread false gossip. Maybe kindness and compassion is your idea of virtue? Than act in such a manner where you show kindness and compassion to everyone you meet. There are so many virtues. You could try adding one at a time to your life. If you are still not sure, just Google, “What are some virtues?” and take it from there.
The second skill to become a superior person is to Stay focused. This may seem simple, but in today’s distraction driven world, the focused person is a superhero. The average attention span seems to dwindle by the day. Most people do not live an amazing life not because they lack knowledge, but because they lack focus. Staying zeroed in on what is important to reaching your goal is not a skill many modern people possess. Working to improve your attention and ability to focus will put you far ahead. This can be setting limits on phone use, only watching one episode of a show instead of binge watching them all. Skipping watching television or scrolling until after you complete a task is even better yet! Use it as a reward!
This is one that people either have a hard time grasping, or forget all together. Far too many people let their emotions get the best of them and then spend their time and energy trying to correct the consequences. Does anger cause you to snap at people or say things you would not normally say? Instead use it to fuel a good workout, or put that anger and frustration to use as kindling for the fire of desire to become a better version of yourself and improve your life. Does sadness forbid you from even leaving the bed? Use that pain as a motivation to help others who may be hurting. All emotions, from positive to negative, can be made to work for us instead of controlling us. Is controlling your emotions and putting them to work easy? Of course not! Especially if you have been letting them run the show for most of your life. The important point is that it is possible. Putting your emotions to work for you can give you a superior life and make you a superior person.
One goal – to become a superior person. Three simple steps – control your emotions, stay focused and live with virtue. Can you see how easy it is to rise above the crowd? Yes, it will take some work. Yes it will be challenging. Ask yourself this question, “Is your life worth it?” If the answer is ‘yes’, begin to do these three things right now. Every day of effort makes you superior to anyone who is not trying, but most importantly, superior to the person you were yesterday!
Happiness is quite the topic lately. Billions of dollars spent by people trying to obtain it. Thousands of books written every year telling us how to find it. I even wrote one. (A Happy Life for Busy People) Most people would like you to believe that happiness is a subject far too complicated to be understood by the average person. They point to all of the successful people who have not figured it out yet. Movie stars that suffer from depression. Rock stars that turn to drugs or alcohol to cope with the inability to find it. Examples are everywhere.
I believe that the complication is part of the problem. Looking at the photo above, 3 simple things can help us increase the amount of happiness in our life. Let us tackle them one at a time. Letting go of what was. In self-improvement circles they say if you are depressed, you are living in the past. Stressing over what is done and can’t be changed is a foolish endeavor. You can mine the lesson out of the experience. You can occasionally use the pain of the reminder to motivate you to be better in the present, but beyond that, let it go. Much like driving, we glance in the rearview mirror, but look through the windshield. It is good to glance back at your past and see if anything is sneaking up to affect your present, but go back to looking out the windshield. Just like staring in the rearview mirror while driving will cause you to crash, living in the past will cause your present life to come crashing down around you.
The second enjoying what is, should be a no-brainer. Why would you not do your best to enjoy your current life? Many delay their happiness until some future event. That is also a foolish course of action. I have been listening to a lot of Inky Johnson. If you do not know who he is, I highly recommend a quick Google search and listen. When people tell him, “I will do it tomorrow.” Which I imagine includes feeling grateful and enjoying what you do have in life. He answers them with the question, “Who promised you that?” Meaning that tomorrow is not a given. There are so many of us who went to bed with plans for tomorrow who never woke up. That is a sad reality. Also a sad reality is people who never stop to feel grateful for all that they have and all that is right in their life. Yes, we all face challenges. Yes, some are worse than others. All of us, however, have many things to be grateful for if only we stopped to focus on them.
Lastly is having faith in what will be. How many times have you laid in bed full of worry for what tomorrow will bring? You would be better served being as prepared as you can be and getting the proper amount of rest. There is a saying that the best assurance for a good future is to create it today. The future and the past are two things that exist only in our minds. One has been over and done with. The other has not even happened yet. The only way to affect either is to do something in the present. You want to improve the past? Use it to learn from. You want to have a good future? Do something to improve your life today. The present is the only time we can act in. The future is not only up to us, but as we discussed earlier, it is not guaranteed.
Work on these three things daily. Letting go of the past. Enjoying the present. Having faith in the future. If you do this with any amount of effort and consistency, the level of happiness in your life is sure to increase.
In a post-Covid world this could be an alarming title. What we are talking about here is authenticity. We are talking about courage. So many of us do our best to hide what perceive as our faults. Filters on our pictures on social media. Holding back our laugh because we think it sounds funny. There are a million other examples. Can you think of some in your own life? Nobody wants to look like they are less than perfect. There are so many benefits by doing so.
To start, it is liberating. When you become comfortable with people knowing your perceived shortcomings, it takes the power away from them. If you are comfortable with them, nothing anyone else says can upset you. That is a very freeing feeling. Second, it is vital to becoming the best version of ourselves. Admitting and working on our imperfections is the first step to improving them. If we pretend the do not exist, or spend a good deal of our energy hiding them, it will slow our self-improvement.
Lastly, the quote above reminds us that by being comfortable with our perceived imperfections, the more we give others permission to do the same. It can be contagious. Can you imagine asking all of your friends to try not to show anything that is less than perfect about themselves? Hopefully you cannot. Most people would consider that pretty rude. Not to mention, you would never get to fully know what makes up your friend. The crazy part is we basically say that very thing to ourself. By changing our inner-dialogue, we give permission for others to do the same. We get to know each other on a more deeper and intimate level. That will only strengthen our friendship.
Did you notice something else that I did throughout this discussion? I used the word perceived in front of imperfections. The reason I did that is very important. You may think your laugh is ridiculous, and it may be, but it may bring joy and a smile to the hearts of all who hear it. What you view as an imperfection may be a gift to others. What you spend your time and energy trying to hide may be just what the rest of the world needs. Even just having the courage to be imperfect can eliminate a lot of stress for those around you. Let this be contagious. Be brave enough to embrace every aspect of yourself and you give others permission to do the same!
SECRET 2 AN AMAZING LIFE 