‘De’Cluttering our Lives

By Mary Desaulniers

If I have to pinpoint the most important resolution to make for the New Year — it would be this-finding ways to de-clutter my life. Stress as we know it does not only come in the form of mental anguish. Much of it is experienced through the clutter we have in our daily lives: unnecessary commitments that are standing in the way of doing what we really want to do. What we need to learn is how to de-clutter our lives so that the road to what we really want becomes clear.

Most of us have a vague notion of what we want; but being able to define it clearly is another matter entirely. Do we want money, fame, achievement? Do we want to create something that we feel proud of, a legacy that we can leave behind as the one ultimate creative act we can strive towards and materialize?
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Setting a Goal is Essential

By Honman

We need a destination before we can set off towards our destination. We need a purpose in our life to be meaningful. Something that said:” My presence will make the difference!” or “I will made others life better.” For some people, religious beliefs that guide them would fulfill this. For others, it could be achieved through charity or social work. Many individual spend their spare time with the aged or the less fortunate achieved this as well. There is a Chinese saying “Helping others is the source of happiness”.

Draw a plan that includes your goals and aspiration will give you a clear direction in life. People who drift through life plan felt helpless and powerless. When you have a goal, you are driven towards success. The goal has to be something matters and important to you. It should be something that you are interested.
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Kaizen For Self Improvement

By Steve Gillman

What does Kaizen, a Japanese method of production excellence and industrial efficiency have to do with self improvement? Can it be adapted to self-work? What is it, anyhow?

It began with the “continuous improvement” theories of efficiency expert W. Edwards Deming in the 30s and 40s. After the war the ideas were picked up by the Japanese and developed into “Kaizen,” a method for creating quality products efficiently through many small and continuous changes. This is perfect for self-improvement, as Robert Maurer explains in his book “One Small Step Change Your Life:”

“Your brain is programmed to resist change, but by taking small steps, you effectively rewire your nervous system so that is does the following:
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Mind Like Water

In karate there is an image that’s used to define the position of perfect readiness: “mind like water.” Imagine throwing a pebble into a still pond. How does the water respond? The answer is, totally appropriate to the force and mass of the input; then it returns to calm. It doesn’t overreact or underreact.

The power in a karate punch comes from speed, not muscle; it comes from a focused “pop” at the end of the whip. That’s why petite people can learn to break board and bricks with their hands: it doesn’t take calluses or brute strength, just the ability to generate a focused thrust with speed. But a tense muscle is a slow one. So the high levels of training in the martial arts teach and demand balance and relaxation as much as anything else. Clearing the mind and being flexible are key.

Anything that causes you to overreact or underreact can control you, and often does. Responding inappropriately to your e-mail, your staff, your projects, your unread magazines your thoughts about what you need to do, your children, your boss will lead to less effective results than you’d like. Most people give either more or less attention to things than they deserve, simply because they don’t operate with a “mind like water.”

Source Ana Maria González

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