Do you appreciate life?

It might be easy to reply with a quick “yes” to this question, but how much intensity did you put into your answer? The fact is, even those of us with a generally positive attitude usually have plenty of room to appreciate life more. And learning to be more appreciative trumps pretty much any other productivity tip. Which is easier, making twice as much money, or simply being twice as appreciative of what you already have? These tips will help you supercharge your appreciation of life.

1. Remember that you won’t live forever.

First and foremost, remember that your time here is limited, and it’s up to you to decide how you’ll use it. When someone survives a near-death experience, they always resolve to live life to the fullest after that moment. But is there any reason you need to wait for a near-death experience? Why not decide to live life to the fullest right now? Simply deciding to do so makes it much easier to figure out how. On the other hand, you could devote your entire life to complaining. It’s really up to you.

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Believe it or not, I actually owned a small amount of Netscape stock right after it went public in the mid ‘90s. I watched in awe as the price soared and my little investment doubled in value. I felt like a wall street warrior and marveled at my investment prowess. Wall Street was mine for the taking and nothing was going to stop me.

Then one day the price went down. Only a little at first and certainly not enough to worry about. But then the downward slide began and I watched in as the price went lower and lower and lower. How could this be? Netscape was the darling of Wall Street at the time and made ‘surfing the net’ a mainstream experience. With unbridled confidence I watched and waited. And waited some more. I just knew it would rebound.

Unfortunately for me, after a few years of “waiting”, I finally sold the stock at a loss after the AOL buyout. It was only after reading “Sway – the Irresistible pull of irrational behavior” by Ori and Rom Brafman that I understood why I had acted the way I did. It was little comfort to know that I acted like so many investors and was swayed by a force almost as powerful as gravity – Loss Aversion.

Ori and Rom Brafman explore several psychological forces that influence decisions we make and the actions we take on a daily basis. These forces are stronger that any of us realize, and have a significant impact on our lives. Think of these forces as Dark Matter for our minds, that exert an unseen force that sways us into taking actions that we really should not be taking. Rational people doing irrational things. What are these forces that have us in their grip? Is there a way to overcome them? Ori and Rom present the evidence and provide the information needed for us to break free.

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Failed relationships are one of the biggest causes of stress and unhappiness in life. Working on successful relationships, whether they are with our children, parents, friends or partners, is one of the most important life skills we can learn. If we cannot maintain lasting relationships, we will always struggle to be happy.

This article looks at seven common reasons why once harmonious relationships break down. If we know why relationships are liable to break down we can avoid the pain involved.

Jealousy

It is ironic that we can easily become jealous of our closest friends. Jealousy often occurs when there is a feeling of separation and competition. We need to learn to be happy at the success of others; it only when we can feel a sense of oneness with others achievements that jealousy will remain far away.

Also, we need to trust our partner -  a suspicious mind is very poisonous. It is better to be trusting rather always suspecting infidelity or disloyalty. Others will be rightly discomforted if we mistrust them. If our partner lets us down, it is not our fault. But, if we suspect, because of our own insecurity, we are bound to create serious problems in our own relationships.

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For the past few years, I have been in a position of management at a fairly large organization. Not large like Microsoft or Coca Cola, but big enough to have taught me some really important things about management, leadership and life. The organization used to be a lot smaller – it has grown and I have grown with it. Over the years, I have had to adapt to the place getting bigger – more people, more complex provision of services, more departments, bigger buildings.

Here are some thoughts on the skills necessary to navigate the ship through the sometimes stormy waters, keeping the vessel and its crew safe and on course.

Realize you are the captain!

Here’s a wonderful story from Anthony de Mello’s amazing book, Awareness.

One morning, a gentleman knocks on his son’s door. “Jaime,” he says, “wake up!” Jaime answers, “I don’t want to get up, Papa.” The father shouts, “Get up, you have to go to school.” Jaime says, “I don’t want to go to school.” “Why not?” asks the father. “Three reasons,” says Jaime. “First, because it’s so dull; second, the kids tease me; and third, I hate school.” And the father says,”Well, I am going to give you three reasons why you must go to school. First, because it is your duty; second, because you are forty-five years old, and third, because you are the headmaster!”

Apart from the comedy value of the unexpected ending, this story is so great because it is about waking up and realizing that you are in control. Your life is a ship and if you are not the captain, then who is? Do you think anyone else is going to chart your course and keep you on track? When we were kids, our parents might have done this for us – a lot of us have failed to realize that we’re not the kids anymore; we are the headmasters!

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Life is full of contradictions.  People say they want health food, but McDonalds still makes billions of dollars each year.  People say they want to work satisfying jobs, but end up chasing after the biggest paycheck.  People say they want news on world affairs, but tune into 24/7 coverage of Anna Nicole Smith.

I’m no different.  I have plenty of contradictions between what I truly believe and how I behave.  And I think anyone who says they don’t is lying to themselves.  Practicing what you preach isn’t easy.  It may be impossible to do it completely.

But even if you can’t escape the contradictions of modern living, you can lessen their impact.  You can consult what you know to be true, and use that to guide you, instead of rationalizing your behavior and living a lie.

Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive dissonance is a fancy psychological term for something incredibly simple: when people hold two contradicting ideas, their minds start to fry.  This can be something simple like, “I believe health is important” and “I just finished eating a bag of potato chips.”

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If I could offer you free of charge 5 questions guaranteed to improve the quality of your life, make you happier, less likely to get into arguments, more likely to reach your goals and be more popular with other people, would you be interested in hearing them?

Of course you would, who wouldn’t? After all, they’re free and it doesn’t get much cheaper than that.

Well actually there is a slight catch. Yes they’re free and yes they’ll do all I claim and more, but only if you commit to embedding them so deeply into your neurology by constant and conscious repetition that they become second nature.

Then and only then, will they allow you to make the kind of quantum shift in your life that has your friends thinking your body has been invaded by a very clever, charismatic and slightly easier to get along with space alien.

1. What Else Can This Mean?

As a human being you have developed your own way of looking at things. You see the world through a filter or lens built up and fine-tuned on your beliefs and values. As such you only ever see your own reality, never reality itself.

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Many of us feel we could do with more sleep. However, the demands of modern life make this dream largely impossible. But there is an alternative. Instead of always wishing we could have time for just a little more sleep, we can improve the quality of what sleep we do get.

The following are my tips for ensuring you get the very best quality sleep possible.

Sleep in Complete Darkness

Think cave, the night refuge of prehistoric humans. Our bodies are physiologically adapted to certain environmental circumstances and our physiology has not changed in close to 100,000 years. Essentially that means you are running around in a caveman or cavewoman’s body. Which also means you body is made to sleep in complete darkness.

It has been shown through scientific research that the release of melatonin is light sensitive. Light inhibits melatonin release whenever it touches skin but the eyes are especially important. Even as much light as produced by a single candle has an effect of reducing nighttime melatonin release. These days melatonin is sold as a sleep aid. But why buy and take a synthetic chemical when you can make your own, all natural, melatonin?

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Like it or not, life is sales. Even if you aren’t anywhere near the sales department in your work, I’d bet that almost every day you need to persuade, convince or find an agreement with another person.

A key sales (and life) lesson is simply this: just because you don’t get a response, that doesn’t mean the other person isn’t interested. Although we all dislike the pushy salesperson who goes for the hard sell at our expense, I’d say the majority of people are too passive. The assumption usually is: if people don’t respond immediately or come to me, it means they aren’t interested in what I have to offer.

I can think of countless examples where this kind of flawed thinking plagues people:

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All of us have times when we just seem to be in a bad mood with the world in general. Here’s a few quotes from the last hour or two on Twitter:

• “People suck. I’m in a bad mood. Ugh.”
• “Wish I knew why I was in such a fowl mood. Nothing bad happened today, in fact it went rather well. I just feel like… bleh!”
• “Ever just *know* you’re going to be in a bad mood, like a weather forecast? Hoping tomorrow’s not a bad day.”

I’m sure you can think of some moments during the past week when you’ve felt exactly the same. I know I can. And I hate being grumpy: I snap at people unfairly, I feel a complete lack of motivation towards my goals, and I often end up spiralling further and further into a Really Bad Mood.

Gradually, though, I’ve found some things which really do help when I’m feeling like this. The hardest thing is actually doing them. When I’m grouchy, a big part of me wants to stay grouchy and fed-up, and I struggle to see the point of trying to feel better. So print out this list, or write your favourite ways on a big bit of paper, and stick it to the wall – and promise yourself that next time you want to kick the cat, yell at your neighbour and phone up your mom to whinge, you’ll try something from the list first.

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Do you have trouble getting things done? Have you ever decided to do something that was important to you, but later found you just weren’t making any headway at all? If you’re having trouble completing tasks that you want to do, and which you know you’re capable of doing, you might considering using a technique called benchmarking.

A benchmark is nothing more than a certain level of output that you’re establishing as your bare minimum. When using benchmarking, what you want to do is decide what your daily benchmark will be for a particular task, and accept nothing less than hitting that benchmark consistently.

For a benchmark to be realistic, it should be well below the maximum that you’re capable of, and substantially less than what you really want to do. You want to have an idea of what you’d ideally like to accomplish each day, but if you fail to hit your targets, you want to be sure that you at least achieve a certain minimum standard. Shoot for your goal, but accept no less than your benchmark.

An Example of Using Benchmarks

Let’s say you have a book that you’ve been meaning to read. You know it’s a book that will be very helpful, so you really want to read it in a reasonable period of time. But it’s a really big book and it requires a lot of concentration to fully understand it, so you’ve been procrastinating, hoping that you’ll find the time to read it someday. Of course, that day never comes, and the book continues to collect dust every day. How can you use benchmarking to ensure that you stop making excuses and actually read the book?

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