39 Ways to Live, and Not Merely Exist

8 Things to Stop Doing Right Now The main purpose of this site is to help you be who you want to be and live the life you want to live. I think everyone deserves that at the bare minimum, and I believe that everyone can achieve it. Therefore, a lot of the messages that I share here are positive, inspiring and action orientated. With this post I want to change direction, and not cover the things you should be doing, but the things you shouldn't be doing. Photo Credit I truly believe that successful implementation, or actually 'de-implementation' of these methods will dramatically improve a number of things. What I mean by improving your awareness is that you actually might 'wake up' to some of the things you've been doing, and understand exactly why I say you need to stop doing these things immediately. 1. Ask yourself, is there anyone in this world that could achieve what I want to achieve? 2. “Why do some people have all the luck?” These are all questions that deserve no time to be pondered. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. zp8497586rq

How to Run a Meeting Like Google Meetings get a bad rap in business today and for good reason—very little gets accomplished in them. I can recall a Dilbert cartoon in which several people sat around a table while the meeting organizer said, "There is no specific agenda for this meeting. As usual, we'll just make unrelated emotional statements about things which bother us…" That pretty much sums it up. The majority of meetings are unstructured, uninspiring, and unproductive. But they don't have to be that way. When I decided to write a column about running effective meetings, I turned to a leader who holds more than anyone I know and who actually credits her meeting structure for leading to some of the most innovative advances in technology today: Marissa Mayer, Google's vice-president of search products (see BusinessWeek.com, 6/19/06, "Marissa Mayer: The Talent Scout"). 1. Mayer requests a meeting agenda ahead of time that outlines what the participants want to discuss and the best way of using the allotted time. 2. 3.

88 Ways To Make A Stranger Smile post written by: Marc Chernoff Email Don’t wait for people to smile. Show them how. Let your guard down. Remember, your best friend was once a stranger too. Love whoever is around to be loved. Smile often.Hold a door open for someone.Pay for the person in line behind you.Send a hand-written thank you card to someone who assisted you with something.Clean out all your old clothes and donate them to someone in need.Give a compliment about a waiter, waitress, sales clerk, etc. to his or her manager.Compliment a stranger’s appearance. And above all, live proudly. Photo by: Thomas Hawk If you enjoyed this article, check out our new best-selling book. And get inspiring life tips and quotes in your inbox (it's free)...

Things that make you smile Things that make you smile Smiley17: Things that make you feel good! 1. Falling in love. 2. Laughing so hard your face hurts. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. Friends are quiet angels who lift us to our feet when our wings have trouble remembering how to fly. Re:Things that make you smile AmyMarie1972: Things that make me smile: 1. And there is probably loads more and my list could go on forever.Amy

88 Important Truths I've Learned About Life | Raptitude.com Everyone gets drilled with certain lessons in life. Sometimes it takes repeated demonstrations of a given law of life to really get it into your skull, and other times one powerful experience drives the point home once forever. Here are 88 things I’ve discovered about life, the world, and its inhabitants by this point in my short time on earth. 1. You can’t change other people, and it’s rude to try. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88. Photo by Philgarlic Have a lot on your mind? Everyday mindfulness has transformed my life, and the lives of many others.

Topics du Jour: Give Your Life Direction in Less than 10 Minutes Topics du Jour is a powerful journaling technique you can use to review, plan and put your life in perspective within no more than 5 or 10 minutes of your day. Here’s how it works: Number down a page from 1 to 30. Write in each line one aspect of your life that you would like to monitor. Then, each day of the month, look at the corresponding topic and write a paragraph or two about it. You may end up writing about your plans, or maybe about a specific problem you’re facing in that area. Here are a few examples of topics you can write about: CareerFamilyFriendsHealthMoneySpiritual LifeLearningLeisureAgingContribution Bear in mind that the topics don’t need to be limited to the usual notion of ‘life areas’. A note about the number of topics: to be fair, you don’t need to define 30 topics to write about: the only requirement is that you keep a schedule to cycle between your topics, no matter how many of them there are. Top 3 Benefits of Topics du Jour 1. 2. 3. Too analytical. Too analytical?

30 Challenges for 30 Days of Growth Email We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit. - Aristotle Scientists have suggested that, with a little willpower, it takes roughly 30 days for a person to form a new habit. As with mastering anything new, the act of starting and getting beyond the preliminary stage where everything feels awkward is 80% of the battle. It’s like the old saying: “How do you eat an elephant? And when you start small like this, you won’t need a lot of motivation either. Below you will find 30 challenges to be accomplished over the course of 30 days. Use words that encourage happiness. – Typically, when I ask someone “How are you?” As you progress through these challenges remember, personal growth is a slow, steady process. Photo by: Andres AZP If you enjoyed this article, check out our new best-selling book. And get inspiring life tips and quotes in your inbox (it's free)...

The Future of Self-Improvement, Part I: Grit Is More Important Than Talent In the late ’60s, Stanford psychologist Walter Mischel performed a now-iconic experiment called the Marshmallow Test, which analyzed the ability of four year olds to exhibit “delayed gratification.” Here’s what happened: Each child was brought into the room and sat down at a table with a delicious treat on it (maybe a marshmallow, maybe a donut). The scientists told the children that they could have a treat now, or, if they waited 15 minutes, they could have two treats. All of the children wanted to wait. When the researchers subsequently checked in on these same children in high school, it turned out that those with more self-control — that is, those who held out for 15 minutes — were better behaved, less prone to addiction, and scored higher on the SAT. Instead of getting obsessed with the marshmallow — the “hot stimulus” — the patient children distracted themselves by covering their eyes, pretending to play hide-and-seek underneath the desk, or singing songs from “Sesame Street.”

120 Ways to Boost Your Brain Power Here are 120 things you can do starting today to help you think faster, improve memory, comprehend information better and unleash your brain’s full potential. Solve puzzles and brainteasers.Cultivate ambidexterity. Use your non-dominant hand to brush your teeth, comb your hair or use the mouse. Readers’ Contributions Dance! Contribute your own tip! There are many, many ways to keep our brains sharp. 4 Promising Curation Tools That Help Make Sense of the Web Steven Rosenbaum is a curator, author, filmmaker and entrepreneur. He is the CEO of Magnify.net, a real-time video curation engine for publishers, brands, and websites. His book Curation Nation is slated to be published this spring by McGrawHill Business. As the volume of content swirling around the web continues to grow, we're finding ourselves drowning in a deluge of data. The solution on the horizon is curation. In the past 90 days alone, there has been an explosion of new software offerings that are the early leaders in the curation tools category. 1. Storify co-founder Burt Herman worked as a reporter for the Associated Press during a 12-year career, six of those in news management as a bureau chief and supervising correspondent. At the AP, editors sending messages to reporters asking them to do a story would regularly write, “Can u pls storify?” Storify uses existing elements from the web and gives curators the power to drag and drop elements into storylines. 2. 3. 4. Conclusion

100 Ways to Nurture Yourself Probably the most important component to demanding your joy is learning to take excellent care of yourself – mind, body, and spirit. Think of caring for yourself as if you were your own child – giving to yourself at least as much as you give to others. You are worth it! Like joy itself, self-nurturing comes in many little bits. Put a post-it on your mirror that says, “You look beautiful!” OK, that’s more than 100. Here are a couple of books I recommend that helped me to nurture myself when I was feeling less than inspired: Stand Up for Your Life You Can Heal Your Life Choose Them Wisely: Thoughts Become Things Tags: intention , lists , self

5 Must-Read Books for Small Space Organizing KathrynBechenINK/Screen capture The temptation to have a generously-sized home -- one that's big enough for all your stuff -- is a little backwards: Choosing a place with less square footage and then downshifting your consumer habits helps you cut your consumption, use fewer resources, lower your carbon footprint, and reduce the amount of material possessions you have -- which can add stress. TreeHugger founder Graham Hill kept all of this in mind for his own tiny apartment, which he renovated with flexible furniture and walls as part of the LifeEdited project. Want to get your space organized but don't know where to start? 1. Small Space Organizing: A Room-by-Room Guide to Maximizing Your Space hit shelves in January 2012 -- just in time to offer tips and advice to everyone who put "get organized" on their list of New Year's resolutions. 2. 500 Ideas for Small Spaces BuyBooksOnline.com/Screen capture 3. Parable.com/Screen capture 4. Amazon/Screen capture 5. Amazon/Screen capture

12 Critical Things You Should Never Tolerate | PickTheBrain | Motivation and... There is so much in life that we just tolerate. Some of it we have to deal with (taxes, bad weather, traffic). But there’s a good portion of stuff that we tolerate even when we don’t have to. We step around things, overlook irritations, and mindlessly accept energy drains. Sometimes just recognizing the things we are tolerating in life gives us a renewed sense of hope and energy. However, when you address some of your bigger tolerations, you can completely change the course of your life and open doors to a world of happiness and inner peace that you didn’t know existed. Think about the poorest of the poor, living in squalor and despair without the hope of a better future. In the same way, we must search for these portals that will allow us to move to the next level of powerful living. Do you want to walk through the portal to a happier life? 1. You spend nearly half of your life at your job. 2. A long commute to work by car or public transportation is stressful and empty. 3. 4. 5. 6.

60 Small Ways to Improve Your Life in the Next 100 Days Contrary to popular belief, you don’t have to make drastic changes in order to notice an improvement in the quality of your life. At the same time, you don’t need to wait a long time in order to see the measurable results that come from taking positive action. All you have to do is take small steps, and take them consistently, for a period of 100 days. Below you’ll find 60 small ways to improve all areas of your life in the next 100 days. Home 1. Day 1: Declutter MagazinesDay 2: Declutter DVD’sDay 3: Declutter booksDay 4: Declutter kitchen appliances 2. If you take it out, put it back.If you open it, close it.If you throw it down, pick it up.If you take it off, hang it up. 3. A burnt light bulb that needs to be changed.A button that’s missing on your favorite shirt.The fact that every time you open your top kitchen cabinet all of the plastic food containers fall out. Happiness 4. 5. 6. How many times do you beat yourself up during the day? 7. Learning/Personal Development 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.