Tag Archive for: happiness

Ikigai: Live a More Fulfilling Life the Japanese Way

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What do you do in a typical week?

  • Go to work
  • Spend time with your family
  • Read
  • Meditate
  • Have drinks with friends…

It’s important to have a good balance of work and play, social time and alone time. But at the end of the day, what’s it all for?

There are hundreds of self-help books on how to find your passion or change career path to something more inspiring.

But as my friend Terri would say, window cleaners don’t have that job because they have a passion for clean glass. There’s a certain level of practicality to what we do as well as a need to be financially stable.

So how do we find fulfilment? Read more

How to Hygge: A Lesson in Self Care

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I love rules.

Clear cut, simply defined rules.

I also love a good mantra. You know a few words to remind you of your goal or purpose.

These two things are most perfectly combined in Marie Kondo’s idea of realizing if an item in your home sparks joy for you.

It’s a simple yes/no question that evokes an emotional response.

I’m doing research for my new book, Listful Living: A List-Making Journey to a Less Stressed You, and I came across the idea of hygge, which I quickly became obsessed with. I first heard of it from my media-training client Melissa Coleman, who is the author of The Minimalist Kitchen.

What is Hygge?

It’s a Danish word pronounced “hoo-ga,” which is broadly defined as a feeling of cozy contentment. Read more

Never Drink Cold Tea Again

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Let me guess – this has happened to you.

You’ve made a cup of tea or coffee, then got so absorbed in your work and it went cold. Right?

Or found that there’s a small window of time when your drink is at perfect drinking temperature and then you miss it and keep running back to the microwave.

This has been my reality and it drives me nuts. It’s so unproductive.  

I absolutely HATE drinking cold tea!

Ok fine – it’s a minor inconvenience, but it’s also one I don’t have to deal with anymore.

This past Christmas my parents bought me one of my favorite gifts ever – the Ember cup!

The idea is that it allows you to keep your drink at the precise temperature that you set.

No more cold teas!

I know it seems kind of crazy to spend $80 bucks on a mug but I’m telling you it’s been a game changer for me.

I’m much more productive actually because I’m not always running back and forth to the microwave. And it makes me happy to drink tea at the perfect temperature. It makes the experience that much more joyful.

I’m spoiled for all other tea cups!

If I could change one thing I would prefer a slightly less plain cup. I’m a sucker for a pretty tea cup. And sometimes the app is a little wonky. You use it to time how long your tea will steep and what temperature you’d like to maintain.

But I’ll overlook it all for a cup that stays a perfect 137 degrees. The Ember cup also comes as a travel mug as well.

The Summer of Me

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By now I’m sure your social media streams are flooded with kids going to camp photos and all the fabulous vacation snapshots from Italy and other fabulous locations. Mine sure has.

As much as I love planning and scheduling, even I find the big push to make the most of your summer a little tiring. I read an article recently that really summed up my feelings on the issue. Kristin Hewitt, a sports reporter and blogger, announced that her family would being ‘doing nothing’ for the summer. She explains that rather than scheduling every free moment of her children’s lives, the summer would be better spent getting in some R&R and letting the kids decide what they wanted to do. Read more

Put Yourself First This Year

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When did more become better? Longer hours, bigger sacrifices, fewer hours of sleep. This is becoming the new norm for many people and even I get excited when I see an article that claims to have the secret schedule of the most successful people. But the truth is you don’t need to be getting up early to go to yoga, work a 10 hour day then get home and make a freshly-prepared home cooked meal, before you rush of to your child’s clarinet recital. I’m not the only one who has noticed this growing trend, it was a big topic of discussion at the Listful Thinking afternoon tea event and it was raised in my friend Cass McCrory’’s recent podcast interview.

Buying into the “more is more” philosophy can set you up for failure. It can lead to blaming yourself that if you just push a little more then you’ll be able to achieve all your goals. That’s not always necessarily true.

Truthfully, however, working harder can only help you up to a certain point. Beyond that it you may only get diminishing returns. This is the point  when the benefits gained is less than the amount of money or energy invested.

After my appendix burst, I started taking a ‘just enough’ approach. I learned this when I interviewed Heidi Hanna, a stress expert, in my book Listful Thinking but didn’t really apply it til now. She told me to make a “just enough” list instead of bogging it down with lots and lots of to-dos. The list contains only the minimum requirements that I would feel like just enough after completing them.

The free time I have left over can be spent doing things I enjoy or that I want to work on. I find that in the long run prioritizing  my mental and physical well being, instead of just working hard all the time, has been a key part of my success. When you have more room to breath you have to more time to:

  • Think creatively
  • Be inspired with new idea
  • Concentrate on the task at hand

I’m challenging you to put yourself first this week! Make a ‘just enough list’ for today and share it with me on social media. (@ListProducer on Twitter, @ListProducer on Instagram, or here on Facebook) I’d also love to hear about the other ways you prioritize your well being.