The ChillOut Log
- Thread starter Chillen
- Start date
- Status
You are the "True Light". The person within you, proves this to be true.
You always have been.
You are welcome.
Thats okay, I know you visit the log often. And, have for a very long time., and know even if you dont post, you view it.
I do owe you an apology. I havent posted to your Journal yet. I have no execuses to give you other than to say, I am sorry, and I will post today to it.
(edit: I guess I did, lol. I am an old fart you know and I have brain spasms from time to time.....look at the way post sometimes, he, he.)
ROCK ON!
Jackie.
Chillen
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Which one are you referring to Woodt? Your preferences for page list may be different than mine.
How are you Woodt? Geesh been a while.
How is it going young man?
How is school, life at home, and "stuff" in general?
Good to hear from you!
Best regards,
Chillen
I am off work today.
Todays agenda:
1. Helping the brotha and sista's where I can
2. And, today is Upper Workout day later in the evening. Also, Test for BF with DEXA is 2morrow (I get tested for free, he, he)
OH! I am also taking my sons out to dinner tonight.
My wife is a true comedian, I tell ya! A regular old classic professional. I am quite the jokster around the house, have fun, and get the family laughing, and feeling good, and I was on a role yesterday, and when I told my wife I was taking our sons out to dinner she says:
UH! The the big TURD taking his little SH@TTS to dinner!
LOL
My wife thinks I am a TURD.
Best regards,
Chillen
Todays agenda:
1. Helping the brotha and sista's where I can
2. And, today is Upper Workout day later in the evening. Also, Test for BF with DEXA is 2morrow (I get tested for free, he, he)
OH! I am also taking my sons out to dinner tonight.
My wife is a true comedian, I tell ya! A regular old classic professional. I am quite the jokster around the house, have fun, and get the family laughing, and feeling good, and I was on a role yesterday, and when I told my wife I was taking our sons out to dinner she says:
UH! The the big TURD taking his little SH@TTS to dinner!
LOL
My wife thinks I am a TURD.
Best regards,
Chillen
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Heya Chillen, hows it going Doc?? i havent seen protein boy around here in a while, or FlyinFree, i wonder what they r up 2. Well anyway thanks Chillen, u have given me a lot of Knowledge these past few months
Jackie xxx
ROCK ON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I am going to put this in "simple" terms:
As we age, some of our biological functions decline (such as testosterone, etc, etc)
And, as we age, there is a tendency (if one doesnt do weight training and improve their diet to assist in combating this natural tendency), for the metabolism to slow, muscle mass to decline, and fat tissue can increase.
For example, (keeping things equal), if one stays with eating the same amount of calories (say at 45) as they did when they were 25, factoring in the aging and slowing metabolism (and aging biological functions), they will have a "tendency" to gain more fat tissue, than they did when they were in their prime (again assuming one healthy, and things equal). Thus BF percentage increases, and muscle mass declines. This is also assumes no training nor change in diet. Weight training and diet CAN DRASTICALLY improve the aging situation.
Did this simple explaination help you, or do you want a more indepth response?
Chillen
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I just felt bad, that I hadnt posted to it, LOL, when in fact I had. A brain fart moment
I am doing well, and hope you are too.
Chillen
April 15th, 2008: For my friend, AIM.
AIM SPEAKS! And he Listens.........:
WE ENTER ANOTHER DIMENSION......OF.................Blazing Hope. ...It is a quality which keeps a man on his feet with his face to the wind. It is the virtue which can transmute the hardest trial into glory because beyond the pain, it sees the goal.....................................
AIM is the CHAMPION and the VICTOR!
Life brings what it brings………...
AIM might be young but he has learnt this:
AIM prepares for each blind corner with his strongest shoulder dropped, ready to smash through whatever is thrown at him next.
Once the dust clears, AIM will be standing tall, a champion, a victor.
NOTHING will be able to knock you down once you've taken the biggest hits this life has to offer---->so come on life, BRING IT!
AIM You are a HERO:
In the name of the best within you, do not sacrifice this world to those who are its worst.
In the name of the values that keep you alive, do not let your vision of man be distorted by the ugly, the cowardly, the mindless in those who have never achieved his title.
Do not lose your knowledge that man's proper estate is an upright posture, an intransigent mind and a step that travels unlimited roads.
Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at-all.
Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach.
Check your road and the nature of your battle.
The world you desired can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it's yours.
(Ayn Rand--Modified/Changed by Chillen)
=========================================================
Aiming's new Sig:
"Though I may lose externally daily, internally I am undefeated."
(SJ)
Chillen within some interpretation:
It's not what you are that holds you back, it's what you think you're not. Happiness is fleeting; only joy lasts forever. One can only be joyful once he/she realizes that external material and trivial things should never penetrate the internal character.
=========================================================
Some funny SH@T for my friend, AIM:
=========================================================
ROCK ON!
AIM..........HIGH!
Best regards,
Chillen
AIM SPEAKS! And he Listens.........:
I am a champion standing over the shadow of my former self.
WE ENTER ANOTHER DIMENSION......OF.................Blazing Hope. ...It is a quality which keeps a man on his feet with his face to the wind. It is the virtue which can transmute the hardest trial into glory because beyond the pain, it sees the goal.....................................
Let's not limit our challenges, instead, let's challenge our limits!
You ARE AIMING HIGH!
You ARE AIMING HIGH!
AIM is the CHAMPION and the VICTOR!
Life brings what it brings………...
AIM might be young but he has learnt this:
AIM prepares for each blind corner with his strongest shoulder dropped, ready to smash through whatever is thrown at him next.
Once the dust clears, AIM will be standing tall, a champion, a victor.
NOTHING will be able to knock you down once you've taken the biggest hits this life has to offer---->so come on life, BRING IT!
"You Can Stop Clocks with your Mental Fierceness"
AIM You are a HERO:
In the name of the best within you, do not sacrifice this world to those who are its worst.
In the name of the values that keep you alive, do not let your vision of man be distorted by the ugly, the cowardly, the mindless in those who have never achieved his title.
Do not lose your knowledge that man's proper estate is an upright posture, an intransigent mind and a step that travels unlimited roads.
Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at-all.
Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach.
Check your road and the nature of your battle.
The world you desired can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it's yours.
(Ayn Rand--Modified/Changed by Chillen)
=========================================================
Aiming's new Sig:
"Though I may lose externally daily, internally I am undefeated."
(SJ)
Chillen within some interpretation:
It's not what you are that holds you back, it's what you think you're not. Happiness is fleeting; only joy lasts forever. One can only be joyful once he/she realizes that external material and trivial things should never penetrate the internal character.
=========================================================
Some funny SH@T for my friend, AIM:
=========================================================
ROCK ON!
AIM..........HIGH!
Best regards,
Chillen
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Thanx Chillen! Definitely got the message through. Just what I needed. That sig you put for me is awesome, I never though of it that way. I watched that video, haha, looks like some of it was really painful-looking. This really helped me dude, thanx again.
Originally Posted by Aiming4165
The Chillout Log Well,
I apologize for it being so short.
1. Why havent you made progress? Explain this in your own words.
2. Explain some of your fears, Aim? Why is this seemingly (at the moment) stronger than the desire to get back on track?
3. Explain some of the "positives" that assist you to wanting to get back on track. I know your back ground, so I know its wanting to lose some weight. What is pushing you to do this?
My point is to push you to bring this out (if you want to on a forum, that is), and with you being very honest with it.
4. Have you had your cholesterol and blood pressure checked recently.
Best wishes to you!
Chillen
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I just wanted to tell you that I have another more traditional post planned based on your answers.
I will answer your questions, and make comments on your reply, and mix it with other information for your benefit.
Aiming its time we try to get you on track and consistent.
Best wishes
Chillen
I will answer your questions, and make comments on your reply, and mix it with other information for your benefit.
Aiming its time we try to get you on track and consistent.
Best wishes
Chillen
1. I haven't made progress because I simply cannot stay consistent with my diet/exercise program. One day I'll be good(gym+eat right) next day I will see a box of oreos and overeat them...I am on a rollercoaster with my weight loss wants. One day I see myself as fat(look in the mirror see my body fat) next day I will see myself as not so fat because I compare myself to some other people I see and say I'm at a decent weight. I recently read a good quote which 100% applies to me:
"Your only limits are self-imposed"
2. My Fear? I guess the only doubt I have of losing weight is getting out of my "comfort zone." If I have a choice to eat pizza rather than chicken, OK! If I can sit at home on the computer rather than going to the gym, OK! That's what I know gets me. It seems like I'm aware of all my faults, but its really hard to improve them. I mean, why is it so hard for me to get up and exercise? Hmm, sitting at home then sweating? That's why...
3. My positives? I remember that thread I had with my *AIM's Progress Pics*, I felt awesome. For that short time I followed the program, I did not feel fatigued, never really gave up so easily, and lost some weight. Also, my self-esteem was higher knowing I was doing something good for myself. Also, Remember the dreaded backpack thread? I seem to go back and forth with that feeling too. All winter, which is now over, I was wearing sweaters, covering up my "fat look" but now summer is here, and shirts are back in season. Another incident I never mentioned here on the forum is a pool incident. On vacation one summer, I don't know how but I did not really care or was so self-conscious, but so many people were staring at me(I believe it was Noah's Arc). I want to go to a pool with my chin up and internally happy.
While it may seem like I want to improve just my appearance, its also my health. Now, If I felt great that short time on that progress pics thread, why wouldn't I stick with that? Junk food, I seriously screwed the whole program and gave into a temptation such as food, a temporary pleasure whose only outcome is more fat accumulating...I'm conscious, but its not enough to get my to stop, I do not know why.....
4. No, my BP or cholesterol has not been checked recently. I only get it checked when I go to the doctor and I haven't been there since freshman year b4 high skool.
Good Morning Everyone!
I hope this day finds you all well. Hopefully, if this is scheduled training day, you bust dat @ss in the gym, eat according to the goal you desire, and progress in the manner you wish.
Get up each morning with the resolve to be happy . . . set our your own conditions to the events of each day.
To do this is to condition circumstances instead of being conditioned by them.
(R W E-modified by Chillen)
Okay, time to be busten it in the gym: Off to train........
Be happy everyone! Have a great day!
Best regards,
Chillen
I hope this day finds you all well. Hopefully, if this is scheduled training day, you bust dat @ss in the gym, eat according to the goal you desire, and progress in the manner you wish.
Get up each morning with the resolve to be happy . . . set our your own conditions to the events of each day.
To do this is to condition circumstances instead of being conditioned by them.
(R W E-modified by Chillen)
Okay, time to be busten it in the gym: Off to train........
Be happy everyone! Have a great day!
Best regards,
Chillen
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AIM so you know in case you didnt see it.
I created a new thread, in the hopes that we could get some other opinions and viewpoints, and open up the help as much as feasibly possible. I hope you dont mind.
Here is the link:
http://training.fitness.com/member-s-lounge/come-lets-show-our-support-aim-32614.html
I will responding soon.
Wish you the best!
Chillen
I created a new thread, in the hopes that we could get some other opinions and viewpoints, and open up the help as much as feasibly possible. I hope you dont mind.
Here is the link:
http://training.fitness.com/member-s-lounge/come-lets-show-our-support-aim-32614.html
I will responding soon.
Wish you the best!
Chillen
April 17th, 2008: Thoughts for the day (1) FOR AIM
I worked from 7a to 3A yesterday, and then I got called back into work at about 7p, and worked until about 9p, went to bed, and now I can sleep.
It was 2:30 AM when I got up. I have a cardio session scheduled at 5:30AM (30 minutes), which will ROCK!
Sleep is eluding me, for some reason. I must examine this.
=========================================================
(by Steve Pavlina)
When you want to make a change in your life, especially a big one, you’ll typically meet resistance along the way.
An effective strategy for rendering such resistance powerless is the strategy of overwhelming force.
This is a military strategy of course, but we can co-opt it for our own personal development as well. Instead of merely dipping your toes into the change you’d like to make, you dive into it headfirst.
Instead of undercommitting resources, you overcommit.
Too often when people attempt a big change, they undercommit their personal resources.
Instead of a quick victory, they end up with a quagmire akin to Viet Nam, where they have to keep putting in more and more energy just to maintain the status quo.
For example, suppose you want to lose 50 pounds. You make some moderate dietary and exercise changes. For a while they work well, and you lose the first 10 pounds. But then you get stuck at 40 pounds overweight. You keep maintaining the same diet and exercise levels, but because you’ve undercommitted your resources, your total long-term effort is much greater than it needs to be.
Exercising while 40 pounds overweight, month after month, perhaps even year after year, is very hard and takes a tremendous effort and discipline to maintain, especially when your results are minimal. Simply going through your daily routine with that much weight on you will make your life much harder than necessary.
My daughter weighs about 45 pounds, and to carry her around for any length of time would be very difficult. I couldn’t even imagine going for a 5-mile run with her on my back. So even though the strategy of overwhelming force requires a greater up-front investment, in the long run it can save you a great deal of time and energy.
Think of all the personal resources you can use to apply overwhelming force to one of your goals — your intelligence, intuition, skills, talents, time, money, family, relationships, reputation, assets, environment, etc.
If you find that you’re stuck in a stalement vs. the resistance working against you (whether internal or external), then perhaps it’s time to apply to the strategy of overwhelming force and just get the job done.
Bring enough of these additional resources online until you reach the point where you not only feel you’ll overcome all resistance — you feel certain you’ll squash it.
Ask yourself, “What would it take for me not only to achieve this goal but to absolutely dominate it?”
What would you consider overkill? Imagine your goal as if you’re planning a battle that you MUST win, regardless of the cost. Write down what you think it would take to be certain of success.
If you think you have an effective kill strategy for your goal, but it isn’t working too well, perhaps you’ve underestimated the resistance. Don’t feel bad if you find yourself in this situation — great military leaders have been punished by this mistake as well. Accept that your kill strategy may in fact be underkill, and what you think of as overkill may be just what you need.
Once you see your overwhelming force strategy written down on paper, you may be thinking, “Wow… this would work, but it would take a lot of work to get it going.” The goal may be more “expensive” than you first realized, and some sacrifice may be required. So this is when you have to decide whether the goal is actually worth doing. Is it worth the price to you, or is it truly too expensive and not worth the effort?
Once you figure out what it will really cost to achieve your goal, you can then decide whether you’re willing to pay that price or not. Often we fail to achieve goals quickly because deep down we feel the price is too high, but we don’t want to accept that. So we try to cheat by undercommitting resources, hoping the goal can be achieved with far less effort. In a handful of situations, we get lucky and achieve the goal more cheaply. But in most situations, we waste tremendous time and energy pursuing goals that never get achieved.
Imagine what your life would be like if you could achieve most of your goals on the first try because you applied overwhelming force. Your first diet took you quickly to your goal weight. Your first attempt to quit smoking lead you to become a permanent nonsmoker. Your first attempt to find a fantastic job succeeded. No rework, retesting, repeating, recommitting, revamping, re-anything. Applying the strategy of overwhelming force can even be fun too, such as when you have the goal of getting pregnant.
=========================================================
Best wishes to all on the forum!
I sincerely hope all of you have a great day!
Best wishes
Chillen
I worked from 7a to 3A yesterday, and then I got called back into work at about 7p, and worked until about 9p, went to bed, and now I can sleep.
It was 2:30 AM when I got up. I have a cardio session scheduled at 5:30AM (30 minutes), which will ROCK!
Sleep is eluding me, for some reason. I must examine this.
=========================================================
AIM: YOU READ THIS
"Overwhelming Force"
"Overwhelming Force"
(by Steve Pavlina)
When you want to make a change in your life, especially a big one, you’ll typically meet resistance along the way.
An effective strategy for rendering such resistance powerless is the strategy of overwhelming force.
This is a military strategy of course, but we can co-opt it for our own personal development as well. Instead of merely dipping your toes into the change you’d like to make, you dive into it headfirst.
Instead of undercommitting resources, you overcommit.
Too often when people attempt a big change, they undercommit their personal resources.
Instead of a quick victory, they end up with a quagmire akin to Viet Nam, where they have to keep putting in more and more energy just to maintain the status quo.
For example, suppose you want to lose 50 pounds. You make some moderate dietary and exercise changes. For a while they work well, and you lose the first 10 pounds. But then you get stuck at 40 pounds overweight. You keep maintaining the same diet and exercise levels, but because you’ve undercommitted your resources, your total long-term effort is much greater than it needs to be.
Exercising while 40 pounds overweight, month after month, perhaps even year after year, is very hard and takes a tremendous effort and discipline to maintain, especially when your results are minimal. Simply going through your daily routine with that much weight on you will make your life much harder than necessary.
My daughter weighs about 45 pounds, and to carry her around for any length of time would be very difficult. I couldn’t even imagine going for a 5-mile run with her on my back. So even though the strategy of overwhelming force requires a greater up-front investment, in the long run it can save you a great deal of time and energy.
Think of all the personal resources you can use to apply overwhelming force to one of your goals — your intelligence, intuition, skills, talents, time, money, family, relationships, reputation, assets, environment, etc.
If you find that you’re stuck in a stalement vs. the resistance working against you (whether internal or external), then perhaps it’s time to apply to the strategy of overwhelming force and just get the job done.
Bring enough of these additional resources online until you reach the point where you not only feel you’ll overcome all resistance — you feel certain you’ll squash it.
Ask yourself, “What would it take for me not only to achieve this goal but to absolutely dominate it?”
What would you consider overkill? Imagine your goal as if you’re planning a battle that you MUST win, regardless of the cost. Write down what you think it would take to be certain of success.
If you think you have an effective kill strategy for your goal, but it isn’t working too well, perhaps you’ve underestimated the resistance. Don’t feel bad if you find yourself in this situation — great military leaders have been punished by this mistake as well. Accept that your kill strategy may in fact be underkill, and what you think of as overkill may be just what you need.
Once you see your overwhelming force strategy written down on paper, you may be thinking, “Wow… this would work, but it would take a lot of work to get it going.” The goal may be more “expensive” than you first realized, and some sacrifice may be required. So this is when you have to decide whether the goal is actually worth doing. Is it worth the price to you, or is it truly too expensive and not worth the effort?
Once you figure out what it will really cost to achieve your goal, you can then decide whether you’re willing to pay that price or not. Often we fail to achieve goals quickly because deep down we feel the price is too high, but we don’t want to accept that. So we try to cheat by undercommitting resources, hoping the goal can be achieved with far less effort. In a handful of situations, we get lucky and achieve the goal more cheaply. But in most situations, we waste tremendous time and energy pursuing goals that never get achieved.
Imagine what your life would be like if you could achieve most of your goals on the first try because you applied overwhelming force. Your first diet took you quickly to your goal weight. Your first attempt to quit smoking lead you to become a permanent nonsmoker. Your first attempt to find a fantastic job succeeded. No rework, retesting, repeating, recommitting, revamping, re-anything. Applying the strategy of overwhelming force can even be fun too, such as when you have the goal of getting pregnant.
=========================================================
Best wishes to all on the forum!
I sincerely hope all of you have a great day!
Best wishes
Chillen
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April 17th, 2008: Thoughts for the day (2)
(by Steve Pavlina)
Do you tend to compartmentalize all the different areas of your life? Career goes there, relationship goes here, spirituality fits there, and health … well, that’s neither here nor there.
Or maybe your compartmentalizing is temporal instead of spatial in your thinking. During the workday you do what you must, this evening you’ll do what you love and have some fun, and on Sunday you’ll think about what it means.
Or perhaps you experience a feeling of compartmentalizing thought vs. action: “I’m spending X% of my time thinking and Y% of my time acting.”
When you view your life as a series of different compartments, each with different rules, then life gets pretty complicated. Trying to achieve balance is very difficult because you constantly feel the need to task switch. My relationship needs attention. Oh no, I’ve been neglecting my health. I need to work harder. I’ve got to stop thinking so much and take more action.
The different “bins” of your life are all fighting for your time. And the longer you neglect one of those bins, the louder it gets and the harder it will fight for attention. Put off your health for too long, and you’ll crash with an illness. Put off your relationship for too long, and a breakup may be the result. Put off your work, and your career and income will suffer.
This is a paradigm that many people share. Keep all your balls in the air. Keep all those plates spinning. Don’t let your spiritual beliefs interfere with your work.
But I think it’s a broken paradigm. Let’s consider a different way of thinking….
What if your life had only one bin, one ball to juggle, one plate to spin. Just one. No need to deal with 10 different areas of your life and keep them all balanced. Just one.
How is this possible? It’s possible if all of those different areas of your life are congruent, if they all follow the same rules. Then thought and action are one, both pointing in the same direction. They’re on the same path. Your work is congruent with your most deeply held spiritual beliefs — you don’t have to take your spirituality offline when you go to work. Improving your health improves your relationship. Increasing your income increases your service.
This means moving from a paradigm of the different parts of your life being in conflict to a new paradigm where they all cooperate. Instead of seeing each part of your life as independent, you begin to see them as interdependent. And isn’t this a more accurate model anyway? Can you truly isolate each part of your life as something separate? Can you abuse your health and think it won’t affect your career or your relationships? Do you think your feelings about your relationship won’t affect your financial situation? Can you ignore your spiritual beliefs when making business decisions and expect no negative consequences?
It seems obvious that all the different parts of your life are deeply interconnected. But a common way to treat problems is to try to isolate them. If there’s a problem with your health, you need to diet and exercise. If there’s a problem in your career, it’s time to work harder. But this isolation protocol doesn’t work well because there’s too much overlap between all the different parts of your life, no matter how much you try to isolate the problem areas and go to work on them.
It’s often the case that the obvious cause of the problem isn’t the true source. If you feel lonely because you haven’t been able to find the right relationship, and you keep trying harder and harder to find a relationship, you may get nowhere. The problem may be that you work at a career you aren’t passionate about, and you project this lack of passion to everyone you meet. And still a deeper issue may be that your spiritual beliefs tell you that service to others is very important, but you don’t feel you’re doing that. Then you change careers to do what you love, and it aligns with your spiritual beliefs because now you feel you’re contributing and serving. Then out of nowhere, you meet your future spouse, who is attracted to your passion about your work and the contribution you’re making. And the encouragement you experience from this relationship in turn helps you advance your career, increase your income, and free up more time to spend with your new spouse. Your stress goes down, and your health improves too. Your inner spiritual conflict was the real source of your inability to find the right relationship. Everything is deeply interconnected.
Although it seems that each part of your life follows different rules, they all follow the same rules. You may have different values for each part of your life, but the rules that govern those areas don’t change.
An example of an unchanging rule is kindness. The concept of kindness should resonate with your spiritual beliefs. You can be kind to your body, and your health will improve. You can be kind to your co-workers, and your relationships with them will improve. You can be kind to your spouse, and your marriage will grow stronger. You can be kind to a stranger, and your self-esteem will increase. It doesn’t matter to which area of your life you apply the principle of kindness. Its application is universal.
Another universal rule is being proactive, assuming personal responsibility for results and taking positive action. It doesn’t matter where you apply this rule: health, relationships, emotions, spiritual beliefs, career, business, money, etc. Being responsible works no matter where you apply it.
Cheating is another universal principle. No matter where you apply it, the long-term results are negative. Cheat your health, and pay the price of sickness. Cheat in your relationship, and the cost is a loss of intimacy. Cheat in your education, and your income suffers.
But more powerful than these intra-area effects, there’s the rippling effect due to the interrelatedness of all areas. So if you apply a universal principle in one area, either positively or negatively, it ripples into all other areas. If you cheat your health, then in the long run this will hurt your career, your relationships, your finances, your emotional state, and your sense of spiritual connectedness. You can’t cheat in one area of your life without suffering the consequences in ALL areas.
Similarly, be kind to your body, and your increased positive energy will positively affect your relationships, your work, your finances, your emotions, etc. Be proactive about building a career you enjoy, and your passion will spread to every other area.
If you violate a universal principle, it negatively impacts all areas of your life. If you follow a universal principle, it positively impacts all areas of your life. Universal principles don’t compartmentalize.
So the key then is figuring out these universal principles and aligning your thoughts and actions with them. This is how you achieve congruence between all the different parts of your life.
So what are the universal principles? Stephen Covey claims that the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People are based on universal principles. I tend to agree, and that’s a good place to start. But I think all of these principles can be reduced to just one: to love. Not the passive squishy emotional feeling of love, but “to love” — the action verb. To love your body translates into proper diet and exercise. To love your mind equates with learning. To love others is service. To love your work is to do it passionately and enthusiastically. To love your feelings means to respect and honor the messages they send you. This verb translates into different specific actions for each area, but the underlying principle is the same. Depending on the situation, “to love” may mean to listen, to serve, to work, to relax, to touch, and so on.
When you start injecting universal principles into every area of your life, alignment will gradually occur. The parts of your life will be transformed such that all these different pieces assemble themselves into one congruent whole. You won’t feel like these different parts of your life are in competition for your time and attention. Instead you’ll feel a sense of internal cooperation. You will have a sense that exercising your body is the best thing for your health and your relationship and your career and your spirituality.
Within each area you’ll either adapt your current circumstances to align with universal principles, or you’ll let go of all the misaligned pieces and start fresh. So your career may shift slightly as you adapt, or you may switch to a whole new career. Your old relationships may transform, or they may end while you seek out new ones. It just depends on how well the external parts of your life are able to align with who you are.
Alignment comes down to working on these four questions until they all produce the same answer:
What do you want to do? (desire)
What can you do? (ability)
What should you do? (purpose)
What must you do? (need)
When these four areas are aligned, motivation occurs automatically. Thought and action are automatically balanced because you are living your purpose consciously. You won’t feel like you should be thinking when you’re acting or acting when you’re thinking. The line between thought and action will disappear. Being and doing will become the same thing.
When you experience misalignment between these four areas/questions, the natural tendency is to slow down… sometimes to a crawl. You’ll feel like you have all these ideas pulling you in different directions, but you aren’t fully satisfying any of them. Your mind knows that continuing to work hard is likely to be futile and won’t solve the real problem of incongruence. It knows it’s time for you to stop, ask directions, and choose the path of alignment.
I went through this while running my games business. While I had many projects to grow the business, I knew deep down that I didn’t want to run that business for another decade. I was containerizing everything: my health over here, my relationship there, my work here, and my spirituality there. Each part of my life felt like it had its own set of rules. Eventually I started questioning whether this was the best way to live. Are we supposed to live like a collection of parts or as an integrated whole? I wondered whether it would be possible to live in such a way where there was only one set of rules governing all areas, essentially meaning that I followed my deepest spiritual beliefs in all matters. This line of questioning led me to discover just how it might be possible for all these different parts of my life might become a single, integrated whole. This would mean that my business and my conscience and my interpersonal relationships were all one. There would be no sense of separation.
In order to go through this process, I had to transform certain parts of my life while totally shifting others. I tried to transform my career initially from within, but the disconnect was big enough that it required a more dramatic shift. Other parts of my life were able to adapt more flexibly. The main reason for my shift away from my games business was that it wasn’t a strong enough outlet for service for me. I think that given enough time, the original business could have been shifted, but that wasn’t the best route for me too take. It was faster and simpler to build a new business from scratch with the goal of congruence in mind than to try to refactor the existing business.
PART TWO, NEXT
Living Congruently
(by Steve Pavlina)
Do you tend to compartmentalize all the different areas of your life? Career goes there, relationship goes here, spirituality fits there, and health … well, that’s neither here nor there.
Or maybe your compartmentalizing is temporal instead of spatial in your thinking. During the workday you do what you must, this evening you’ll do what you love and have some fun, and on Sunday you’ll think about what it means.
Or perhaps you experience a feeling of compartmentalizing thought vs. action: “I’m spending X% of my time thinking and Y% of my time acting.”
When you view your life as a series of different compartments, each with different rules, then life gets pretty complicated. Trying to achieve balance is very difficult because you constantly feel the need to task switch. My relationship needs attention. Oh no, I’ve been neglecting my health. I need to work harder. I’ve got to stop thinking so much and take more action.
The different “bins” of your life are all fighting for your time. And the longer you neglect one of those bins, the louder it gets and the harder it will fight for attention. Put off your health for too long, and you’ll crash with an illness. Put off your relationship for too long, and a breakup may be the result. Put off your work, and your career and income will suffer.
This is a paradigm that many people share. Keep all your balls in the air. Keep all those plates spinning. Don’t let your spiritual beliefs interfere with your work.
But I think it’s a broken paradigm. Let’s consider a different way of thinking….
What if your life had only one bin, one ball to juggle, one plate to spin. Just one. No need to deal with 10 different areas of your life and keep them all balanced. Just one.
How is this possible? It’s possible if all of those different areas of your life are congruent, if they all follow the same rules. Then thought and action are one, both pointing in the same direction. They’re on the same path. Your work is congruent with your most deeply held spiritual beliefs — you don’t have to take your spirituality offline when you go to work. Improving your health improves your relationship. Increasing your income increases your service.
This means moving from a paradigm of the different parts of your life being in conflict to a new paradigm where they all cooperate. Instead of seeing each part of your life as independent, you begin to see them as interdependent. And isn’t this a more accurate model anyway? Can you truly isolate each part of your life as something separate? Can you abuse your health and think it won’t affect your career or your relationships? Do you think your feelings about your relationship won’t affect your financial situation? Can you ignore your spiritual beliefs when making business decisions and expect no negative consequences?
It seems obvious that all the different parts of your life are deeply interconnected. But a common way to treat problems is to try to isolate them. If there’s a problem with your health, you need to diet and exercise. If there’s a problem in your career, it’s time to work harder. But this isolation protocol doesn’t work well because there’s too much overlap between all the different parts of your life, no matter how much you try to isolate the problem areas and go to work on them.
It’s often the case that the obvious cause of the problem isn’t the true source. If you feel lonely because you haven’t been able to find the right relationship, and you keep trying harder and harder to find a relationship, you may get nowhere. The problem may be that you work at a career you aren’t passionate about, and you project this lack of passion to everyone you meet. And still a deeper issue may be that your spiritual beliefs tell you that service to others is very important, but you don’t feel you’re doing that. Then you change careers to do what you love, and it aligns with your spiritual beliefs because now you feel you’re contributing and serving. Then out of nowhere, you meet your future spouse, who is attracted to your passion about your work and the contribution you’re making. And the encouragement you experience from this relationship in turn helps you advance your career, increase your income, and free up more time to spend with your new spouse. Your stress goes down, and your health improves too. Your inner spiritual conflict was the real source of your inability to find the right relationship. Everything is deeply interconnected.
Although it seems that each part of your life follows different rules, they all follow the same rules. You may have different values for each part of your life, but the rules that govern those areas don’t change.
An example of an unchanging rule is kindness. The concept of kindness should resonate with your spiritual beliefs. You can be kind to your body, and your health will improve. You can be kind to your co-workers, and your relationships with them will improve. You can be kind to your spouse, and your marriage will grow stronger. You can be kind to a stranger, and your self-esteem will increase. It doesn’t matter to which area of your life you apply the principle of kindness. Its application is universal.
Another universal rule is being proactive, assuming personal responsibility for results and taking positive action. It doesn’t matter where you apply this rule: health, relationships, emotions, spiritual beliefs, career, business, money, etc. Being responsible works no matter where you apply it.
Cheating is another universal principle. No matter where you apply it, the long-term results are negative. Cheat your health, and pay the price of sickness. Cheat in your relationship, and the cost is a loss of intimacy. Cheat in your education, and your income suffers.
But more powerful than these intra-area effects, there’s the rippling effect due to the interrelatedness of all areas. So if you apply a universal principle in one area, either positively or negatively, it ripples into all other areas. If you cheat your health, then in the long run this will hurt your career, your relationships, your finances, your emotional state, and your sense of spiritual connectedness. You can’t cheat in one area of your life without suffering the consequences in ALL areas.
Similarly, be kind to your body, and your increased positive energy will positively affect your relationships, your work, your finances, your emotions, etc. Be proactive about building a career you enjoy, and your passion will spread to every other area.
If you violate a universal principle, it negatively impacts all areas of your life. If you follow a universal principle, it positively impacts all areas of your life. Universal principles don’t compartmentalize.
So the key then is figuring out these universal principles and aligning your thoughts and actions with them. This is how you achieve congruence between all the different parts of your life.
So what are the universal principles? Stephen Covey claims that the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People are based on universal principles. I tend to agree, and that’s a good place to start. But I think all of these principles can be reduced to just one: to love. Not the passive squishy emotional feeling of love, but “to love” — the action verb. To love your body translates into proper diet and exercise. To love your mind equates with learning. To love others is service. To love your work is to do it passionately and enthusiastically. To love your feelings means to respect and honor the messages they send you. This verb translates into different specific actions for each area, but the underlying principle is the same. Depending on the situation, “to love” may mean to listen, to serve, to work, to relax, to touch, and so on.
When you start injecting universal principles into every area of your life, alignment will gradually occur. The parts of your life will be transformed such that all these different pieces assemble themselves into one congruent whole. You won’t feel like these different parts of your life are in competition for your time and attention. Instead you’ll feel a sense of internal cooperation. You will have a sense that exercising your body is the best thing for your health and your relationship and your career and your spirituality.
Within each area you’ll either adapt your current circumstances to align with universal principles, or you’ll let go of all the misaligned pieces and start fresh. So your career may shift slightly as you adapt, or you may switch to a whole new career. Your old relationships may transform, or they may end while you seek out new ones. It just depends on how well the external parts of your life are able to align with who you are.
Alignment comes down to working on these four questions until they all produce the same answer:
What do you want to do? (desire)
What can you do? (ability)
What should you do? (purpose)
What must you do? (need)
When these four areas are aligned, motivation occurs automatically. Thought and action are automatically balanced because you are living your purpose consciously. You won’t feel like you should be thinking when you’re acting or acting when you’re thinking. The line between thought and action will disappear. Being and doing will become the same thing.
When you experience misalignment between these four areas/questions, the natural tendency is to slow down… sometimes to a crawl. You’ll feel like you have all these ideas pulling you in different directions, but you aren’t fully satisfying any of them. Your mind knows that continuing to work hard is likely to be futile and won’t solve the real problem of incongruence. It knows it’s time for you to stop, ask directions, and choose the path of alignment.
I went through this while running my games business. While I had many projects to grow the business, I knew deep down that I didn’t want to run that business for another decade. I was containerizing everything: my health over here, my relationship there, my work here, and my spirituality there. Each part of my life felt like it had its own set of rules. Eventually I started questioning whether this was the best way to live. Are we supposed to live like a collection of parts or as an integrated whole? I wondered whether it would be possible to live in such a way where there was only one set of rules governing all areas, essentially meaning that I followed my deepest spiritual beliefs in all matters. This line of questioning led me to discover just how it might be possible for all these different parts of my life might become a single, integrated whole. This would mean that my business and my conscience and my interpersonal relationships were all one. There would be no sense of separation.
In order to go through this process, I had to transform certain parts of my life while totally shifting others. I tried to transform my career initially from within, but the disconnect was big enough that it required a more dramatic shift. Other parts of my life were able to adapt more flexibly. The main reason for my shift away from my games business was that it wasn’t a strong enough outlet for service for me. I think that given enough time, the original business could have been shifted, but that wasn’t the best route for me too take. It was faster and simpler to build a new business from scratch with the goal of congruence in mind than to try to refactor the existing business.
PART TWO, NEXT
PART TWO
(by Steve Pavlina)
I must say that this push for congruence in all areas turned out beautifully. I don’t feel that sense of separation between the different parts of my life anymore. My purpose says I’m here to serve and help people. My ability says I can do it through writing and speaking and running a web site. My needs say I must support myself doing it. And my passion says it’s what I love doing most. I don’t have to separate supporting myself with a job and then having fun on the weekends and thinking about spirituality at other times. Work = play = love.
When you live congruently, it’s as if all the different parts of your life lock into new positions to form a new whole that’s greater than all the individual pieces. Everything grows stronger: health, relationships, motivation, actions, results, etc.
I know that as a practical matter, it seems as though different rules often govern in different areas. Separating your spiritual beliefs from your work is very common. A lot of businesses seem to operate on the assumption that universal principles don’t exist. I don’t buy that at all. There are non-universal principles that apply just within their own domains (the rules of nutrition apply to your health but not to your work, for instance), but universal principles apply to all areas. I think that one’s spiritual beliefs are the single most important factor in choosing a career or a company to work for. If you have a deeply held belief that you hold sacred, you cannot violate it in any area of your life without suffering the consequences in all areas. You must be true to your inner self at all times. That’s the only way to be congruent and to live as a whole person instead of merely as a bag of competing parts.
When you live congruently, a quantum leap will occur in each of these four areas. Desire becomes passion. Purpose becomes mission. Need becomes abundance. Ability becomes talent. And it becomes almost ridiculously easy to achieve fulfillment in every area then because all the parts are working together in the same direction.
=========================================================
Have a great day everyone!
Chillen
Living Congruently--Continued
(by Steve Pavlina)
I must say that this push for congruence in all areas turned out beautifully. I don’t feel that sense of separation between the different parts of my life anymore. My purpose says I’m here to serve and help people. My ability says I can do it through writing and speaking and running a web site. My needs say I must support myself doing it. And my passion says it’s what I love doing most. I don’t have to separate supporting myself with a job and then having fun on the weekends and thinking about spirituality at other times. Work = play = love.
When you live congruently, it’s as if all the different parts of your life lock into new positions to form a new whole that’s greater than all the individual pieces. Everything grows stronger: health, relationships, motivation, actions, results, etc.
I know that as a practical matter, it seems as though different rules often govern in different areas. Separating your spiritual beliefs from your work is very common. A lot of businesses seem to operate on the assumption that universal principles don’t exist. I don’t buy that at all. There are non-universal principles that apply just within their own domains (the rules of nutrition apply to your health but not to your work, for instance), but universal principles apply to all areas. I think that one’s spiritual beliefs are the single most important factor in choosing a career or a company to work for. If you have a deeply held belief that you hold sacred, you cannot violate it in any area of your life without suffering the consequences in all areas. You must be true to your inner self at all times. That’s the only way to be congruent and to live as a whole person instead of merely as a bag of competing parts.
When you live congruently, a quantum leap will occur in each of these four areas. Desire becomes passion. Purpose becomes mission. Need becomes abundance. Ability becomes talent. And it becomes almost ridiculously easy to achieve fulfillment in every area then because all the parts are working together in the same direction.
=========================================================
Have a great day everyone!
Chillen
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