How to Eat an Elephant
Image courtesy of Exfordy
How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. We all know the saying, but we often fail to apply this lesson in our lives. If you view the elephant as one giant goal that your whole life depends on, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment. Why not enjoy the bites along the way?
If you ask somebody what goal they’re working on, what kind of answer do you think you’ll get? Assuming they even have goals, they’ll probably say they’re working on something really big, maybe even something that will make them feel like they’ve achieved their life purpose.
It’s not just about big goals
Many people make a major mistake in being entirely focused on big goals. If your goal is to become a best-selling novelist, great. But that’s a really big goal. If you base too much of your life satisfaction on achieving it, you’ll be unhappy for a very long time (possibly your whole life).
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A Simple Guide to Effective Communication
We’ve all seen spam emails and hyped-up sales pages that look so sleazy. We see large fonts, boldface, red text, and sometimes even blinking text. Everyone claims to be able to change your life with this one secret you absolutely need. Effortless abundance is there for the taking, but you must ACT NOW because they only have one product left.
But while they’re screaming at you and telling you why they want you to buy it, they’re sending an even stronger message with the words they’re not saying. The fine print may say “results not typical” or “these are paid actors,” but they sure don’t want you to see that, lest it destroy the perfect illusion they’re trying to create.
They’re not trying to help people understand the pros and cons of the product so they can figure out if the product is right for them. Instead, they’re trying to just cram it down everyone’s throats and pressure people into buying.
We’ve all seen this, and we all despise it. Even in one-way media like television, communication is still meant to be a two-way street. The problem is essentially that they’re talking AT people instead of talking WITH them. But is it possible we’re doing similar things without realizing it?
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How to Establish a Year-Round Attitude of Gratitude
We’ve recently celebrated Thanksgiving in the U.S., a time when many people stop and think about what they’re thankful for. Now that the holiday is past us, should we return to taking everything for granted? No!
Gratitude isn’t meant to be something you pull out once a year, use a little bit, and then stuff into a closet until next Thanksgiving. It should always be on our minds. Most people spend so much time thinking about what they want, that they forget about everything they already have.
An attitude of gratitude not only lets us appreciate our lives more, but it also puts us in the right frame of mind for doing even better. And if you think about it, you’ll quickly see that you have plenty of amazing things to be grateful for.
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How to Master the Art of Forgiveness
Many people find it hard to forgive. As we go through life, it’s inevitable that we’ll come across people who wrong us in one way or another. From the one who cuts you off in traffic to the one who puts you on hold and forgets about you, there’s no shortage of people out there who aren’t treating us exactly the way we’d like. Unfortunately, we’re rather limited in our ability to influence their behavior. But the good news is that we have a lot of control over how we react to them.
Why forgive?
First of all, keep in mind that it’s generally in your best interest to forgive people. Choosing to carry a grudge forever keeps you from ever repairing the relationship. Long after you’ve forgotten what the other person actually did, you’re still focused on being mad at them because you’re stuck in that habit. It’s very easy to blow something way out of proportion because you think too much about what went wrong instead of how to make it right. Don’t be too attached to your anger.
Another thing to consider is what you accomplish by not forgiving. You might decide never to forgive Hitler, and I can’t really object to that. In that case, many people would consider forgiveness to mean compromising their integrity. But what about someone who just made a rude comment about you? Do you really need to be mad at them forever? Is it really worth the stress and the higher blood pressure, or can you just let it go? Just because you might be justified in being mad, doesn’t mean it’s your best option.
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Lifestyle Design for the Rest of Us
The great playwright and Nobel laureate George Bernard Shaw once said, “Take care to get what you like, or you will be forced to like what you get.” Wise words indeed.
The concept of lifestyle design was popularized by Tim Ferriss in his book The 4-Hour Workweek. The idea was to create a system that would generate enough money to meet your living expenses, while requiring only 4 hours a week to maintain it. And then by not having a full time job, you’d have the freedom to do whatever you wanted with your life.
As great as this sounds, the reality is that very few people will be able to make a decent income in only 4 hours a week. Most people will be lucky to work only 40 hours a week in the U.S. But that doesn’t mean that you just have to take what you get. On the contrary, with a busy schedule, it’s even more critical that you make the effort to design your own lifestyle.
Make no mistake, your lifestyle will be designed. The only question is whether it will be designed by thought or by chance. Here are some tips for making sure you get what you like, instead of having to like what you get.
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