The Right Path, Wrong Path, Left Path, and No Path

The Paths

Whenever we fail to make a decision, we fail to grow.

As we approach each of life’s proverbial forks in the road, we are not merely faced with two potential courses of action. Rather, as many as four choices appear in front of us at each fork.

The right path. Often the correct decision is glaring; the right path is illuminated, clear for miles, obvious to everyone. Whenever this is the case, seize the opportunity—take the right path.

The wrong path. Similarly, there are some paths that’re blatantly incorrect, filled with obstacles and venomous creatures lurking about. Avoid these routes, even when they appear to be beautiful or tantalizing or easy.

The left path. Sometimes, though, the fork presents two equally viable options: The right path is right, but so is the left. Or maybe you cannot tell which path is correct from your vantage point. In these instances it is most important to simply pick either path, using all available relevant information, and keep moving forward. Even if we pick the wrong path, we grow from the failure.

No… [Read more on The Minimalists]

Follow Joshua Fields Millburn on Twitter

The Details

 

Daily life is overwhelming. Each day we are faced with an unforgiving barrage of in-your-face advertisements, with “calls to action,” with half a million bits of unsolicited data. Amongst this information avalanche, it’s difficult to discern which details are relevant and which ones are not.

It is, however, the details that make life interesting, exciting, and, most of all, memorable. The details are important; both god and the devil reside there. Without life’s myriad particulars, our lives lack variety. And without variety, we quickly get bored out of our skulls.

To illustrate…

This year’s Misfit Conf was, without doubt, the best conference I’ve ever attended (and I’ve attended scores of conferences). It wasn’t special because of an expensive light show or some brand new technology or even because I spoke there; it was special because of its intentionality and the overwhelming attention paid to the small things.

AJ and Melissa Leon, Misfit’s founders, focused fervently on the details: They didn’t hold the event in your typical conference-type location, like New York or California, opting instead for Fargo, North Dakota, a city surprisingly erumpent with creativity. AJ and Melissa involved the local community, too, intertwining neighborhood artists and musicians and writers into the proceedings. And they didn’t attempt to “scale-up” the affair, opting instead for handcrafted everything, from the surprise venues and full-time onsite barista, to the custom artwork on the walls and bright flowers hanging overhead like vibrant stalactites. They even curated not just the event’s guest speakers, but also the audience, deciding to limit the number of attendees to fewer than 50, requiring an approved application to attend (hundreds of people from all over the world applied, only a fraction were accepted). The whole thing was, in a word, unforgettable.

In fact, every memory we hold—good or bad—is comprised of absorptive details. We remember outstanding conferences like Misfit because people like AJ and Melissa are obsessed with getting the details right: the handcraftedness, the personal touch, the careful curation. Conversely, we remember a restaurant’s terrible service because of the little things they got wrong: the overcooked meat, the apathetic waiter, the crumbs on the table.

Without the details, though, the experience is neither good nor bad; it is transactional. No one ever remembers the transaction; transactions are banal by nature.

But get bogged down with too many details, and life quickly becomes overwhelming, unbearable, vanquished with sensory overload. It is our job, then, to distinguish the 1% of the details that are important from the unimportant 99%.

This is a lesson that I teach in my online writing class: a great story highlights the essential 1% by eliminating the superfluous 99%. Only then does the story become interesting; only then… (Read more on The Minimalists)

Unteachers

 

The more experienced we are, the more unlearning we have to do.

We enter this world as creators, curious to discover ways to express ourselves visually, auditorily, kinesthetically. But, over time, we are taught to be more “realistic,” to be “safe” and “reasonable” and “normal.” When, in truth, we never wanted to be safe or reasonable. Maybe we wanted to be normal, but today’s normality template is far from what most of us had in mind at age five.

Growing up, we all just wanted to be ourselves. That was normal. But soon, we were placed in a classroom, told to stand in line and speak when spoken to, and prescribed ADHD medication if we got out of line. This methodology worked great for creating factory workers and farmers, which seemed ideal when 90% of the population was either the former or the latter.

Today, however, most people are neither factory workers nor farmers (and even those positions have changed radically in the past few decades), and yet we’re all graced with the assembly-line mentality, systematically programmed for compliance, expected to adhere to external standards while disregarding whatever our own internal normal was.

During this process, our creativity is quashed and replaced with a vast emptiness, a desire to create, even though we’re told that we’re not creative. It’s no coincidence that we start focusing more on consuming around the same time, looking for any(material)thing to fill the void.

“All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.” Picasso had this observation a century ago, and, unfortunately, these words ring even truer in today’s postindustrial world, a world where our vocations no longer ape the form of pseudo-creation (a la farming and factorying), and thus the gap between creation and consumption widens as we attempt to buy what no one can possibly sell: individual creativity.

The strange thing about this antiquated system is that most of its gatekeepers—government officials, school administrators, and teachers—aren’t operating out of malice. If anything, their reaction is birthed from apathy or comfort or both. Many teachers, in fact, are just as disenchanted with the whole mess as we are, though they often feel like just another faceless cog in the wheel, powerless amongst the tyranny of bureaucracy.

Thankfully… Read more at The Minimalists

Sticking to a Habit: The Definitive Guide

(The original article can be found on ZenHabits )

Image courtesy of http://www.ilritaglio.it/

 

The hardest thing for most people, when it comes to building habits, is sticking to it long enough for it to become ingrained.

Duh, Leo.

It’s why most people don’t exercise or eat healthy, why people procrastinate or have clutter or debt, why people smoke and drink soda, why people don’t meditate or learn new languages or write everyday or read more books.

Simply put: if you can learn to stick to a habit, you can do almost anything. I’m a good example of that.

So how do you stick to a habit? I’m going to make this as simple as possible — let’s dive in.

Why You Don’t Stick to a Habit

The most common reasons people don’t stick to a habit:

1. Habit is too difficult.
2. You don’t enjoy doing it.
3. Too many habits at once (habits are hard!).
4. Too many other things going on.
5. Changes in routine (sick, travel, visitors, big project at work).
6. Not really motivated to do it.
7. You talk yourself out of it.
8. You miss a day or two and get discouraged.

There are other reasons too: people actively discourage you from changing, or you think negative thoughts about your ability to change, or you overdo it in the beginning and then run out of enthusiasm.

The Rules for Sticking to a Habit

Now that we know all that we’re up against, it seems pretty tough, no? Actually, it’s not easy, but it’s definitely doable. Anything worth doing is going to take some work. You just need to set your mind to doing something tough, and be OK with a little discomfort.

That said, I have a set of rules to follow if you want to actually stick to new habits. Now, you can ignore these rules, as most people do, and increase your likelihood of failure. Or you can try the rules, and see if they work for you (each person is different, so you have to figure out your own formula).

Here are the rules:

1. One Habit at a Time. This is incredibly important — most people ignore it because they underestimate how much focus it takes to actually stick to a new habit. It’s easy to start a habit, or even 5 of them at once. Sticking to them is another story. Please note that this is one habit period — don’t think you can do one fitness habit, one social habit, one work habit, etc. One habit only. Do not break this rule.
2. A Tiny Habit. Do not focus on results as you’re forming the habit. I recently mentioned that I’m doing 3 yoga poses every morning — doing more than an hour is too difficult for me and I tend to quit when I do long classes. Will I get a good workout with only 3 yoga poses? No! I’m not trying to get a good workout, get flexible, become more mindful, or get in shape. Eventually, yes, those results will probably come. But for now, I’m only doing one thing: forming the habit of doing yoga each day. Make the habit as tiny as possible. Whatever you think you should do, cut it in half. Then, if possible, cut it in half again. Maybe once more if your time to do it is longer than 2 minutes.
3. Once a Day. You might think you can change your entire diet all at once. Not bloody likely. Only do the habit once a day, and again, just for a minute or two each day. Once the habit is ingrained, you can expand, but wait at least 3 weeks before you even consider that.
4. Focus on Starting. The only thing you need to do is start. That’s the part of the habit that matters in the first month or so. Later on, you’ll run a marathon. For now, just put all your effort into lacing up your shoes and getting out the door. If you’re meditating, just get your butt on the cushion. If you’re eating healthy, just get your healthy snack (carrots & hummus?) in front of you, and take the first bite. If you’re writing, just close your browser, open a text document, and type the first sentence. Just start.
5. Enjoy Doing It. It’s really important that you get positive feedback for doing the habit, right away. Many people do a habit they hate, which is built-in negative feedback, and then wonder why they can’t stick to it. Do a habit you love, or find a way to enjoy doing the habit. Focus on the positive aspects of it. Also, as my friend Tynan does, praise yourself for doing it. Feel good about doing it. This is immediate reward, and it’s necessary.
6. Watch Your Thoughts. If you start to avoid the habit, or do the habit but feel discouraged, or ever feel like quitting … pay attention to these thoughts. Where are they coming from? Are you rationalizing quitting? Are you giving yourself some negative self-talk? Those thoughts aren’t real — they’re just defense mechanisms your brain uses to avoid discomfort. Let them go, and don’t let them have power over you. You can beat them with some positive self-talk.
7. Don’t Miss Two Straight Days. This is the key. If you let yourself miss a day, be absolutely sure, incredibly and powerfully sure, that you don’t miss a day again. Miss a day, and let all kinds of alarms go off: you should put yourself on emergency status and do everything possible to not miss the 2nd day. Tynan suggests doubling down, but whatever you do, don’t let yourself slip up again. If you do, you are never going to get good at habits. Don’t do it.
8. Be accountable. Tell at least one other person about your habit change, and ask them to keep you accountable. A group of 4-5 people is even better (as in my Sea Change Program). It increases your likelihood of sticking to the habit by about 50% in my experience.

How to Learn the Habit Skill

That might all seem like a lot to learn at once. That’s OK. We’re going to learn it simply and easily. Here’s how:

Do the easiest possible habit when you first start.

If you’re not good at habits yet (and if you’re reading this guide, you probably aren’t), then start with the most basic skills — don’t try to do ninja habit skills yet.

You want to practice the habit rules by doing something crazily easy. It will seem a little ridiculous, but spend a little time doing something ridiculous if you really want to be good at it.

Some ideas for habits to start with:

• Drink a glass of water each day.
• Put your clothes in your hamper.
• Wash your bowl when you’re done.
• Say thank you every morning.
• Drink tea each afternoon.
• Eat one piece of fruit.
• Write one sentence a day.
• Floss one tooth.

Too easy? Try something harder, and if you fail, then promise me you’ll try one of these.

Need Help?

If you need some help with forming habits, consider joining my Sea Change Program. I’ll give you the accountability and reminders you need, along with some guidance each month, and you can form new habits along with everyone else in the program.

The Sea Change Program for forming habits.

 

– Leo Babauta

THE THINGS WE ARE PREPARED TO WALK AWAY FROM

Courtesy of The Minimalists

What are you prepared to walk away from? This oft-unasked question shapes one of the most important principles in my life.

We are all familiar with the age-old hypothetical situation in which our home is burning and we must grab only the things that’re most important to us. Of course most of us would not dash into the inferno and reach for material things first; we’d ensure the safety of our loved ones and pets. Then, once our loved ones were safe, we’d grab only the irreplaceable things. Say, photo albums, computer hard drives, family heirlooms. Everything else would be lost in the conflagration.

I tend to look at this situation a tad differently, though, taking the hypothetical a bit further…

There is a scene in Heat in which Neil McCauley (Robert De Niro) says, “Allow nothing in your life that you cannot walk out on in 30 seconds flat.” Although my life isn’t anything like McCauley’s (he’s the movie’s bad guy), I share his sentiment (for the most part). That is to say, almost everything I bring into my life—material possessions, ideas, habits, and even relationships—I must be able to walk away from at a moment’s notice.

Many of you will disagree with me because this ideology might sound crass or insensitive to you, but I’d like to posit to you that it is actually the opposite: our preparedness to walk away is the ultimate form of caring.

If I purchase new possessions, I need to make certain that I don’t assign them too much meaning. Being able to walk away means that I won’t ever get too attached to my belongings. And being unattached to stuff… Read more on The Minimalists

Quit Buying Into Things

Image courtesy of politicos-rkd.blogspot.com

 

Too often, we find ourselves consuming.
Although consuming isn’t all too bad, seeing as you need to consume the air on this planet; the fruit on the Earth and the Love of the world to truly Live

We deserve these things, they were placed here for our consumption. These are our needs. But what about blind consumption?

You know that: “I just have to have it” feeling. That thing that makes you get into things that you had/have no interest in whatsoever but just feel that you got sucked into (’cause he/she is doing it, ’cause it worked for them etc.)

It’s a habit. We like being spoon-fed. It’s easier and therefore even harder for us to stop this habit.

Introducing Minimalism.

A way of life that allows you to declutter your life-experience and focus on only that which provides essential value to your life. As much as I’ve been mentioning commercial consumerism, there is other types of consumerism beyond this spectrum. You experience this in everyday life. Your friends, colleagues, hobbies- all that you choose to “fill up your time-tank” with.

That is what it seems as if we’re doing a lot of the time isn’t it?

Just filling up our hours with things to do and people to do those things with. We do this so often that we actually end up having no time for ourselves and thus no time to get to know or even reaffirm who we truly are; what our goals are and what our purpose is. This is when Intention plays a really big role.

Once you start acting with intention, you’ll soon realize that all that you need is right there in front of you and the only things you need to be buying into, are the tools to get you closer to realizing your dreams, closer to living out your purpose and achieving your goals!

You Will realize that you don’t really want to buy that new 55″ LED TV. You really want to become a serious writer; so that TV will do nothing but steer you away from this reality. You need to have no clutter- to truly focus on and place those dreams in the middle of your crosshairs.

Learn to say no.

What’s good to you, isn’t always good For you – Eric Thomas

I realized this last week when I had to make the painful decision to “suspend” my gym membership. Even though training was one of the best parts of my everyday experience; it was straining my time. I was only able to hit the gym at 7pm and I’d get home heavily drowsy and exhausted at around 8.30pm… I’d then just go to sleep (as I’d have to wake up at 4am for work!)

When was I meant to find time to work on my startup if I’m always tired when I get to my office… at home? So, I decided that I had to sacrifice the gym- only temporarily- while I soak myself into this company to witness and to be a part of its foundation being laid. One great brick after another.

Soon, I would’ve built that small house. A house that can at least sustain itself (and its inhabitants) enough to allow me to work from home and thus train whenever I wish.

Again: “not everything that’s good to you, is good for you!”

I know that my ultimate fitness is around the corner

I just have to sort this out first.

Gym, just like procrastination, was just my way of filling up the gaps unconsciously. Now instead of training I’m creating and managing a business which is,together with the individuals, improving at Gawdspeed!

That’s what I truly want. Rock hard abs are kinda secondary for now.

Just Intend to do something that adds Great Value to your day, your time and your life-

Then Go Ahead and Do It!

 

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A SINGLE TWEET CHANGED MY LIFE

I never asked for this. I stumbled into minimalism serendipitously, haphazardly, not knowing what I was looking for. It was unintentional at first.

The year was 2009, early autumn. As the leaves resisted their change in color, my dying mother resisted the division of cancer cells in her body as they metastasized beyond her lungs to other vital organs and, eventually, her brain.

A month after she passed, my marriage ended abruptly, and I didn’t know which way was up anymore. All I knew was that I wasn’t happy. I had worked unimaginably hard for more than a decade, chasing happiness around every bend, but the faster I ran, the farther away it was.

As my twenties twilighted, I went searching for answers, looking for anything to help me figure it all out. At that point, any answer would’ve sufficed.

Then in November 2009, a single tweet changed my life. Someone I followed on Twitter, which I hadn’t used much up to that point, shared a link to a video from a young Midwesterner named Colin Wright. Don’t ask me why, but for some reason I felt compelled to click the link… [Read more at The Minimalists]

Pendulums and Extremes

 

Montana is a state steeped in extremes. This year, as April gave way to May, snow dusted my eyebrows and I needed my puffer coat to stay warm. Less than two months later, however, as we waved goodbye to June, the city was erumpent with temps brushing against triple digits.

These extremes are just bookends, though, markers by which we observe the spectrum. And these extremes don’t last. Soon, summer will set in, and we’ll be back to 72º and sunny, spending long summer afternoons by Flathead Lake.

In many ways, I’m the same way. My life has been peppered with similar (almost ironic) extremes: “Director of 150 retail stores becomes a minimalist and rejects consumerism.” “Six-figure executive walks away from his career and earns less than he did a decade earlier.” “Entertainment-addicted jerk jettisons his television and home Internet.” Etc.

But of course the flip-side benefits are just as extreme, too: “Depressive man discovers lasting happiness.” “Rejected writer becomes bestselling novelist.” “Fatso loses 80 pounds and gets in the best shape of his life.” Etc.

You see, sometimes we have to move from one extreme to another in an effort to course correct. Sometimes we must embrace, at least temporarily, the discomfort of the other side of the spectrum. Sometimes we must hit both walls before we find the middle.

Eventually, once the pendulum has traversed both extremes, we discover what works for us, and we end up somewhere completely different from where we started—somewhere in between both extremes.

Read more at The Minimalists

Not Busy, Focused

We are busier than ever. It almost goes without saying. We live in a busy world in which our value is oft-measured in productivity, efficiency, work rate, output, yield, GTD, the rat race. We are inundated with meetings and spreadsheets and status updates and rush-hour traffic and tweets and conference calls and travel time and text messages and reports and voicemails and multitasking and all the trappings of a busy life. Go, go, go. Busy, busy, busy.

Busy has become the new social norm. In fact, if you’re not busy, especially in today’s workplace, you’re often thought of as lazy, unproductive, inefficient, a waste of space.

For me, however, busy is a curse word. Each time I hear it, I wince as if nails are traversing a long chalkboard. Worse, I grimace involuntarily whenever someone accuses me of being busy, my facial features contorting and writhing in mock pain. I respond to this ill-informed accusation the same way each time: ”I’m not busy, I’m focused.”

It was Henry David Thoreau who famously said, ““It is not enough to be busy. The question is: what are we busy about?” And if I were to append his quandary, I’d say: It is not enough to be busy. The question is: what are we focused on?

You see, there is a vast delta between being busy and being focused. The former involves the typical tropes of productivity—anything to keep our hands moving, to keep going, to keep the conveyer belt in motion. It is no coincidence that we refer to mundane or asinine tasks as “busywork.” Busywork works great for factories and robots and fascism, but not so great for anyone who’s attempting to do something meaningful with their waking hours.

Being focused, on the other hand… Read more on The Minimalists

Following Through: A lesson in Inertia.

Image courtesy of: RedBalloon Inc

[Funny how “inertia” was derived from the Latin word iners meaning “lazy” ]

The principles of inertia are pretty simple: an object in motion will continue to proceed in that motion until that object is subjected to an external force that interferes with this motion. In other words, if you start implementing a plan right now- that plan will proceed in motion unless an external force interferes. In the life of an entrepreneur, you are faced with a number of external forces just waiting to you slow down. The key, is to just keep doing.

You see, the only way that you can resist an external force from holding you back is to find/create an external force that will, rather, accelerate you forward. This is why no matter what obstacle you stumble upon, no matter how slow things are going, no matter who says what- you need to keep moving forward. Truth be told, there are about a thousand and three of those moments when I feel that I should just chill;  “I’ll do it later” and as we all know- later never really comes. Before you know it, you’re bumming on the sofa thinking about what could have been. When this right here moment, is the moment in which you can begin to change ANYTHING and Everything. The only way to truly know how good an idea is and how successful that idea will become is to go through with it.

And don’t just start- finish. Don’t just start designing your dream website, commit to it:

• Purchase a domain and get a good hosting client- this monetary commitment will make you conscious of your commitment. As you keep getting billed- you’ll want to See the results of what you’re paying for.
• Create a Twitter, Facebook and Google+ page for the website
• Start filling it up with valuable content
• Tell your friends/family about it
• Start developing a following
• Begin to workout a business model to monetize the site
• Find the correct funding for such infrastructure.

This list of actions represents only a fraction of all the things you can do to allow your site to progress

So, start moving towards goals and use the accomplishment of these goals as fuel to accelerate you to even greater goals. Let your life become a cycle of improvement: iteration after iteration of progress.

‘Cause once you start moving, there is nothing that’s can stop you…
except YOU.Find out how to create your own “external accelerating force” here.

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