personal development

Fearing Happiness

August 20, 2019 By Kat

What a triggering title. I’m almost afraid to write this post, which is why it must be written! Anyhow, this thought (of me fearing happiness) flashed across my mind the other day. I was thinking about how many great blessings I have in my life, yet how I feel a constant worry or anxiety beneath it all. Through some self-reflection, this is how I’ve come to explain it.

I think I somehow developed this habit or fear of getting too excited about something because I had this misconception that if I actually felt happiness, then it would soon be followed by a crash or something bad happening.

You know the quote, “what goes up must come down” and vice versa. I suppose this is a comforting thought when you’re down in the dumps because then you know it’ll only get better from there. But somehow my mind played tricks on me and got me to believe that if I accepted being on a high / being at the top of that curve / being happy, then I would be caught off guard and surprised by some tragic event.

And since I didn’t want anything terrible to happen, I never allowed myself to be happy for sustained periods of time and to finally relax into that happiness. I can only describe it as being hesitant to be happy.

Even recognizing this fear of happiness has helped me acknowledge and move past this unhealthy thought. When you can become conscious of what’s going on and can realize how silly a thought actually is, then you can rebuttal it.

And in this case, when I catch myself falling into this habit or coming up with unnecessary things to worry about or feel bad about, then I can respond to myself with: “No. That isn’t a problem. And it’s okay to be happy.” Usually this thought will be followed by a deep breath to relax into the feeling of “everything will be okay.”

It’s almost like giving yourself permission to be happy. And no one can give this to us except ourselves.

What do you think? Have you ever got stuck in this type of mentality before?

My Documentary:
Finding What’s Real (watch on YouTube)

Managing Energy Not Time – The Power of Full Engagement Book Review

March 21, 2019 By Kat

I really enjoyed this book by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz called “The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Time, Is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal.” What a mouthful to say the whole title!

I listened to it as an audiobook – about 4.5 hrs long. Here is the biggest takeaway I got from the book.

Renewing Yourself in Short Periods of Time

When the authors studied high performance athletes, they noticed that the really good basketball players had a routine of resetting themselves in between shots. Then they were able to get their energy back up again and go out and play hard. This made me realize – it’s not about the time length that you take to do self-care and go meditate / do yoga. It’s what you do in the SECONDS or MINUTES of downtime that can help you reset your mind.

They gave some examples of how one woman was able to adjust her work routine so that she could eat lunch outside at a local park to renew herself. I like that idea!

As for how I can apply that to my life, I think listening to my favorite music puts me in a good headspace. So if I needed to do an activity in a small period of time, I think listening to a couple songs can get me relaxed and also ready to get revved up again.

The authors argue that we can’t just keep going and working hard nonstop at all hours of the day, for days and months on end (cough cough Silicon Valley). They talk about ways to renew our energy and that it’s a cycle. Having more balance gets us to a good flow where we can have time for all the things that are important for us (health, family, activities we enjoy) instead of being overwhelmed and drained by everything we have to do.

So to get more done, we need to recover more often and more quickly.

Healthier Habits that Boost Energy

They also talk about other practical techniques and the other factors that are involved in managing our energy. They highlight activities that may feel good in the immediate moment (not exercising, smoking, indulging in an unhealthy meal), but can wreak havoc on your energy levels in the longer term. It helped me become more conscious about habits that I have that either drain or boost my energy.

Their case studies of people are also really interesting – one guy is overworked, his marriage is not doing so well, and he rarely has energy for his kids. Sounds like a common narrative. By working with him on building new habits, they help him transform his life so he can have quality time with his wife over breakfast, go to work, exercise, and also come home early to be with his kids and be present with them.

I like how the authors are realistic. They acknowledge that people just don’t have time these days. They’re not prescribing a ton more activities for you to add onto your TODO list. Instead, they make a convincing argument that it’s about finding activities that create more energy, not finding more time.

Check it out if you’re interested in managing your energy better.
The Power of Full Engagement

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. And of course, I would recommend this book regardless.

The Miracle Morning 30-Day Challenge

March 13, 2019 By Kat

I had heard great things about the book The Miracle Morning, so I finally got around to reading it and it was awesome!! I liked that it was short and to-the-point. No one needs another self-help book that goes on and on lol.

The author Hal Erod says that many people may do 1 or 2 great habits in the morning, but rarely do people combine all 6 habits, which he advocates for. By doing all 6 of these practices each morning, you can have lots of energy and motivation to focus on your goals and be your best self (as evidenced by all the people who’s lives have been transformed by this routine. ) Hal came up with a handy acronym to make it easier to remember: SAVERS. Or he calls them lifesavers, a cute name!

S – silence
A – affirmations
V – visualization
E – exercise
R – reading
S – scribing (also known as writing or journaling)

He emphasizes flexibility and customization to each person’s lifestyle. He says you can do this in an hour (10 minutes for each practice) or even in 6 minutes!! 1 minute each! See his 6-minute miracle morning guide here. I like how 6 minutes seems a lot more accessible than a new routine that could take hours.

I’ve been struggling with finding a good morning routine. I realized that I was primarily doing journaling, spending a heck of a lot of time on that, and I still felt off balance. So I realized that by adding silence, visualization, etc.. that it gave me a lot more balance and energy in the morning. Literally after I tried the whole routine for the first time, it felt like rocket fuel for my brain! I was so alert and energized!

By the way, affirmations felt awkward for me at first. To say affirmations out loud just felt weird. But I found a one page list of affirmations online that I can just read from, so I don’t have to worry about coming up with any on my own. And the more I practice verbally saying these affirmations, the more the words feel true to me.

Snapshot from my journal – tracking that I did each practice!

I’m still trying to find a good rhythm for the miracle morning routine, exercise is still my weak spot. But I want to commit to the 30-day challenge and do it every day for the month of March! I haven’t done it every day so far (oops), but I’m committed and hopeful to do so for the remaining days. I’ll update you on my progress afterwards. That’ll also give me incentive to stay accountable. (Last year, my publicly announced 30-day podcast challenge gave me lots of motivation and momentum.)

What does your morning routine look like? Share in a comment below!

If you’re interested in reading more about the Miracle Morning routine, you can check it out here:

The Miracle Morning: The Not-So-Obvious Secret Guaranteed to Transform Your Life (Before 8AM)

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. And of course, I would recommend this book regardless.

My Word of the Year for 2019

January 27, 2019 By Kat

I wanted to pick out a word-of-the-year. One thing to focus on for the year. But I couldn’t decide which word to pick!

Top contenders:

Massive action – phrase borrowed from Tony Robbins on how to take charge of your life and achieve your goals.
Focus – self-explanatory, we could all use more focus and less distractions.

However, I realized that “massive action” was not working for me because I kept trying to pile more things onto my plate and keep moving in many directions, making little progress on any one thing.

I also realized that “focus” was too narrow of a word for me. It didn’t excite or motivate me that much. The word made me think of limited options and a smaller focus area. It wasn’t very invigorating to wake up and feel like you must focus for the day. Felt more obligatory for me personally.

But then I was listening to this amazing motivational YouTube video Live Your Dreams over and over again. Then I decided on my word for 2019.

Courage

I believe that the word “courage” will steer me in the right direction at each step of the way during this year. Courage means doing the hard thing. Doing a single hard thing can give you more progress than doing 100 easy things in the wrong directions.

Oftentimes the “hard thing” is the right thing to do, and probably the thing that we fear and dread the most. But that’s when we stand to have the biggest gain both in potential external results but also in who we become as a person.

If I have to measure each day, then I’ll need to ask myself, if I did things that required courage each day. It freaks me out thinking that I’ll need to face a fear each day, but if I don’t, what is at stake? If I don’t face a fear today, if I just stay in my comfort zone, then I’ll likely stay the same. I won’t have grown that day.

Sure, one day without growth is no big deal. But if you multiple that by 7 days in a week, spent hiding and procrastinating from your fears, that’s one week of your life gone by that you didn’t grow. And then a month passes by, and you didn’t grow. You make more excuses about why it’s “safe” to stay where it’s comfortable. And then years pass by, and you’ve settled for even more things and you’ve come up with a laundry list of why it’s too hard to change now. And then life send you a wake-up call that you are ill prepared for because this whole time, you didn’t grow into a stronger, better person. You’re essentially the same person as you were 5 years ago.

The Movie: Revolutionary Road

Another way to think about this sobering thought is illustrated in the movie: Revolutionary Road. (This movie reunited Kate Winslet and Leonardo DioCaprio on the big screen since Titanic. Omg I just had to watch it! It’s available on Amazon Prime if you’re interested.)

It’s about April and Frank Wheeler (played by Kate and Leo respectively), who are a married couple in the 1950s living with 2 young kids in Connecticut. They live in a picture-perfect neighborhood in a picture-perfect house. He goes to an office job, while she stays at home to take care of the house and kids. The problem is that their life is on autopilot. They had ambitions when they were younger (her to be an actress, him to go back to Paris – a city he loved) but then they settled into married suburban life and those dreams got put on the backburner. They get so numb with their life and by staying static, and as the movie unfolds, they actually find that there are consequences. I won’t go into details in case you want to go watch it.

Honestly, it was a depressing movie, but I can’t help but find how truthful it is. Staying still in life is so tempting because it seems safe (it’s what you already know and are familiar with), but it is actually the riskiest option. But we can’t see the consequences until the long term, and by then, it may be too late to change our choices.

Many people are dead now. Many people are allowing their dreams to die. Many people have allowed their ideas to lie dormant and collect dust. Many people have all this talent and ability that they allow to be buried inside of them, that they will take to their graves. Because they didn’t have the courage to be who they are.”
Les Brown

Thoughts on Courage

Courage is hard. There’s so many uncertainties and things to fear and worry about in the world.

Does it mean that valiant people are not afraid? No, it means they experience that fear and they move forward.”
Les Brown

What I’ve been trying to do is feel the fear. To feel the trembling fear when I’m about to do something I’m scared to do. And then to acknowledge it and DECIDE that I will do it anyways. And the quicker I do it, the less painful it will be because I won’t have to agonize over all the worst case scenarios.

Cowards die many times before their deaths, The valiant never taste of death but once.”
Shakespeare (Julius Caesar)

I’m far from perfect, and still very much working on being brave. It’s daunting because just as every day is a new day, every day you’re faced with a choice of whether you will be brave or not. And I hope that for me and you, we both decide to be brave.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNgIvxZ4m8U

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