Tag Archive for: happiness

Live Boldly to Reinvent Your Life

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“New year, new you.” It gets thrown around a lot, but it’s time to really think about it.

Is it time for a new you?

What steps have you taken recently towards living the life you’ve always dreamed of? Have you been thinking about making a career change? Or have you been taking the steps to make it change?

My friend, author, journalist, and podcaster, Tamsen Fadal, joined me on my live-streaming show Inside Scoop, to chat about living boldly and the art of reinvention.

Here are four ways to get started reinventing yourself.

1) Declutter Your Life

You need organization to make major changes. And organization starts with my favorite thing…

Lists!

Tamsen uses lists to get her thoughts out and her priorities straight. “I really write down everything in my head and do a brain dump. I block out time every single day so I can declutter my head a little bit and then prioritize what’s the most important thing” Tamsen said.

If you don’t know your priorities (more on that here during my recent WPIX interview) and what you want, you won’t be moving in the right direction. If you’re not sure how to get started using lists to figure that out, I have a LinkedIn Learning Course “The Power of Lists to Get Stuff Done” that will guide you through using lists to improve your life.

Once you’ve decluttered and you know your priorities, you have to…

2) Be Honest with Yourself About Your Goals.

It’s easy to throw yourself into things and start working just to feel productive. “The scariest thing is to stop and really think about and assess what you want,” Tamsen added.

Ask yourself, where do you want to be a year from now? Don’t worry about what other people think. Where do you want to be?

Don’t start working until you have specific and exciting answers to those questions. “I think you really have to be honest with your goals and what it is that you want in the end because  sometimes we find ourselves working toward one goal, only to realize that wasn’t the end game,” Tamsen explained.

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3) Be Honest About Your Reinvention Timeline.

Once you’ve aligned yourself with the right goals, be realistic about how long it will take to achieve them. Be honest about how long tasks will actually take. You’re not going to launch a new content channel in a week. But you can decide what kind of content you want to be regularly creating in that long.

I asked Tamsen what your reinvention timeline should be. “Three months,” she said without having to think about it. “That’s a real established time to get a habit started or at least to achieve something and then go back and look at what you’ve achieved,” she added.

Taking the time to applaud your small accomplishments is important!,” she said without having to think about it. “That’s a real established time to get a habit started or at least to achieve something and then go back and look at what you’ve achieved,” she added.

Taking the time to applaud your small accomplishments is important!

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4) Celebrate Yourself to “Unlock Your Bold.”

Living boldly is something we’re all capable of doing. But that doesn’t mean it won’t be hard at times. Keeping a list (Yay more lists!) of your wins will help you stay motivated.

Even professionals as successful as Tamsen keep a list of their accomplishments. “Not only am I looking forward, but I’m looking back at what those achievements are. When you start building those blocks on top of each other, I think you can unlock that bold part of you,” Tamsen said about keeping her list.

Tracking your accomplishments will help you feel proud of your progress and encouraged to keep going.

For more tips on reinvention, check out Tamsen’s guide to “Unlocking Your Bold” and watch our entire conversation here.

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The Benefits of A Mood Check In

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As you know, I’m a big fan of taking the last 20 minutes of my day to jot down all my to-do’s for tomorrow. It helps me set my intentions  and track what I want to get done. It’s a ritual that I lay out in my first book Listful Thinking.

Recently, one of my readers, Kim from Frankfurt, Germany, reached out to me about an additional category she added to her nightly to -do list. And I really like the idea!

A mood check-in section.

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The Power of Doing Nothing

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You’ve got work to-do lists, home to-do lists, personal to-do lists, returning-to-the-office to-do lists – the list of lists goes on and on. But how often is doing nothing on your to-do list?

It might seem counterintuitive, but adding nothing to your to-do list can help you become more productive.

On the most recent episode on my live-streaming show Inside Scoop, I spoke with Pandit Dasa, author of Closing the Apps in Your Mind and Urban Monk, mindfulness leadership expert, CEO, and former NYC monk  – who offered his insight on how doing nothing can help you accomplish everything.

1) Closing the apps in your mind.

This is more than just the title of Pandit’s book – closing the apps in your mind is a metaphor for why meditation is so important. When too many apps are open on your smart device it clutters the machine, slows down its functions, and drains the battery.

And your brain works the same way.

Taking time to breathe and do nothing increases your awareness of your own thoughts, which can help you let negative or unhelpful thoughts pass without judgement.

2) How closing out your apps helps you.

But why is noticing your thoughts and letting them pass so important? Pandit brings up a Psychology Today article which says we have thousands of thoughts in a day and all of them impact us whether we realize it or not. He goes on to say, every three or four seconds our mind opens a new thought tab, and even though we don’t remember all the thoughts, “it still exhausts us.”

Ever find yourself having an imaginary fight or preparing for a situation that might not even happen? Or worrying about something that happened in the past for a little too long? Only to realize you’ve lost a chunk of your day accidentally? That’s what happens when all your apps are open.

It’s easy to get distracted and sucked into a thought without realizing, the same way you can fall into an internet rabbit hole. And that really cuts into your productivity and stress levels, throwing your whole day off.

Pandit explained it perfectly, “A calm mind is a great foundation on which the rest of the day can be built.” And a calm mind makes for a healthier and happier mind and life. Taking the time to exist in the quiet, hear your thoughts, and let them pass, can help you stay focused in the present moment, increase your creativity, productivity, and decrease your stress and irritability.

3) Preparing to do nothing.

It’s easier to talk about meditation than to do it. Pandit recommends putting “yourself on the calendar.” Adding meditation to your to-do list is one of the best ways to ensure you do it (and don’t open more apps on your phone – or in your mind.)

And don’t worry, you don’t need to clear two hours every morning the way Pandit did during his days at the monastery when he was a monk. You just need to find a few minutes at a time that’s convenient for you. For some people first thing in the morning, for some before bed, and for others it’s the middle of the day. I like to meditate in the morning or else I find that I never get to it.

As Pandit reminds me, the most important part of meditation is doing it – not how long or what time you do it. Adding that if we don’t put ourselves on the calendar, “if we don’t prepare to do nothing, we’ll end up doing something, while we’re doing nothing.”

4) Is there a best way to do nothing?

There is no best way to meditate. Pandit suggests trying different ways and sticking with the method that works best for you. You can try taking a walk outside alone or with your pet, closing your eyes and paying attention to your breath before a big meeting, using apps like Calm, or simply putting your device away and looking out the window while eating lunch.

Don’t worry if you don’t feel the difference right away. Meditation is a practice – so it takes time and continuous practice to start noticing the effects. As long as your device is away, you’re focused on your breath. If, like Pandit, you ask your thoughts to “please stay in the waiting room” of your mind for a few minutes, you’re on the right track.

And if you’re not sure how to clear the time for meditation, check out my LinkedIn Learning course, How to Set Boundaries and Protect Your Time, which includes tips on how to prioritize your needs throughout the day.

It may feel a little strange to do at first, but a little bit of “nothing” can go a long way towards increasing your productivity and happiness. And who doesn’t want that?

You can check out our full conversation and kick start your meditation practice with a meditation led by Pandit here!

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BONUS FREEBIE: Want even more ways to stay organized, productive and less stressed? Click here to get access to my List-Making Starter Kit. It will boost your efficiency and get you back to doing more of the things you love.

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“Thimble List” vs. Bucket List for Joy and Mindfulness

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You know the phrase “stop and smell the roses?”

I always thought it sounded a little cheesy. But my perspective has changed and I’m starting to think that whoever thought of that phrase has the right idea.

I used to be all about bucket lists, but I want to introduce you to the “Thimble List” — AKA “the stop and smell the roses list.” 

Bucket lists are where you put your big goals, like publishing a book or visiting a national park. These are great goals and bucket lists are an amazing way to keep track of them. 

But it’s important to have balance, and that’s why I’m also all about focusing on gratitude — like stopping to smell the roses. 

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Write a Letter To Your Future Self About COVID-19

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Before I decided to start my own business as an author, speaker, and media trainer, I worked as a senior health producer for television news. Even though I loved my job, the time came when I realized I wanted to move on. 

The day I realized I needed a change, I wrote myself a long email about how I was feeling. I used an app called Boomerang for Gmail to schedule the email to arrive in my inbox one year later.

I knew that if I didn’t document how I was feeling in that moment, I would be able to trick myself into forgetting that it was time for me to start something new. 

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