Category: Happiness

Yes, notebooks are an easy place to capture ideas inspired by everyday life, no matter where you are. More importantly though, if you begin to review the daily notes or doodles left in your notebook, you will begin to find trends and themes within your smaller ideas that can be brought together and refined. Being able to connect the dots on the patterns between your work and your life can lead to work you had never considered a possibility before.

Have you ever you wondered how certain people have gotten so successful? Sure you have. A great idea, motivation, persistence, and a little luck helps, but most successful people share certain habits. Here are nine habits that have helped place them on the top...

Steal their secrets to seize the day and seize results.

You don’t actually need to follow every single one of these steps to quit a habit, but the more of them you do, the higher your chances. I recommend all of them if you want to be all in.

“Zen practice … requires great faith, great courage, and great questioning.”

Here’s a secret: Getting rid of stuff feels good. Less is more, buy better, etc. Maybe it was the advent of horror-reality like Hoarders, or the fatigue associated with a consumer culture that spawned the likes of Forever 21 and Black Friday death counts. But last October, a little book with watercolor clouds on the hardcover inspired millions of people to throw away all their useless...

A certain type of perfectionism can lead to depression, anxiety and eating disorders.

Experts attribute about 50% of a person's happiness to genetic endowments and another 10% to circumstances—where we live, how much money we make, how healthy we are. That leaves 40% of our happiness in our control. Fortunately, science has much to say about how we can make the most of that 40%. Even small improvements in mood can have cascading effects. The trick is to pay attention to what strategies work best for you. Try these for starters.

Here are four lessons from watching and listening to Jerry Seinfeld that'll help you become a more successful person.

Replace your less productive habits with more beneficial ones to succeed as an entrepreneur.

Navy SEALS are trained to increase their mental toughness with the ultimate purpose of controlling their fears and being able to appropriately respond in panicky situations. The technique is called the Big Four and (as you guessed) it has four parts.

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.” ~Steve Jobs

As this column deals with topics relating to mind and body, I would like to assume that my regular readership consists of some fairly level minded individuals who may not necessarily jump to full scale wars or engage in petty internet drama, so let’s bring it down from the overly dramatic side of the spectrum for a moment. How can we take this story and apply it to our daily living? Well, have you ever allowed the beliefs, preferences, and personal tastes of someone else have a (negative) influence on your life? If yes, do you still allow this to happen?

Whenever I experience one of those moments, there is one thing that always helps me to get back on track and to focus my energy on my goals. All I have to do is watch a really good motivational video and I feel as if I am reborn. Of course not every motivational video that ended up on YouTube has that kind of power. It has to be a really good video with a strong message.

Talking with Davis made me realize that many of my work habits are bad for my own productivity. In the first of two articles, he shares seven of his tips for jump-starting productivity and creativity. I'm planning to give most of them a try. How about you?

Your morning sets the course for your day, so how you start it is important. There are a handful of factors that help ensure a calm, pleasant morning. Use the RISE method to remember what you should do when you wake up.

Entrepreneur and VC Mark Suster lives by this rule: “Do Less. More.” In a time when you could fill an entire work day just staying apprised of what’s happening in the Twittersphere, or devote more time to cool conferences than to being at your desk getting things done, the key to productivity is doing less, better and more often.

His 4-Hour Workweek book was on the Best Seller List for 7 consecutive years. He next books, the 4-Hour Body and the 4-Hour Chef both became instant bestsellers. He's an angel investor and / or advisor to Facebook, Twitter, Stumbleupon, Evernote and Uber, among other companies. He's Tim Ferriss and here are his top 10 rules for success.

In her book, "13 Things Mentally Strong People Don't Do," author Amy Morin writes that developing mental strength is a "three-pronged approach." It's about controlling your thoughts, behaviors, and emotions. Here are 13 things mentally strong people do not do, according to Morin.

Although you'll never stop other people from questioning you (and we do, we do it all the time) you can at least stop questioning yourself so much, and get out there and start actually missing shots instead of not taking them.

So are you ready to find out the other secrets that can help you in building self confidence? Let’s find out what they are.

The best thing about these hacks is they're easy to implement. So easy that you can begin using them today. Give them a read, give them a whirl, and watch your productivity soar.

Don’t hold back, shop ’til you drop… as long as you spend that cash the “right” way.

Admit it. Someone has said you need more balance in your life. You’ve heard ‘you work too hard,’ more times than you care to remember and it’s become as easy to ignore as your lunch break. Truth is, balance is a necessity. The best bit? The truth doesn’t have to hurt. Here are 4 habits you need to adopt to help you achieve success through a balanced life.

“Self-talk” is the psychological term for the inner conversation that streams constantly through one’s mind. Self-talk is something we all do. In fact, some believe that self-talk is the same thing as thinking.

And you can now begin the process of introducing new ideas that support your inner freedom, and continue to put your soul at ease.  Here are nine such ideas…

Being emotionally wealthy is an essential part of your success as it determines your attitude and thoughts towards life. People who are emotionally strong have a bigger potential to become successful than those who are emotionally weak.

To achieve success, you must constantly turn failures into learning experiences. Unfortunately, many of the truisms that people use when they fail simply set them up to fail the next time. Successful people seldom if ever say:

“I think we dream so we don’t have to be apart so long. If we’re in each other’s dreams, we can be together all the time.”

“My method is different. I do not rush into actual work. When I get a new idea, I start at once building it up in my imagination, and make improvements and operate the device in my mind. When I have gone so far as to embody everything in my invention, every possible improvement I can think of, and when I see no fault anywhere, I put into concrete form the final product of my brain.”

The mind is your battleground.  It’s the place where the greatest conflict resides.  It’s where half of the things you thought were going to happen, never did happen.  But if you allow those thoughts to dwell in your mind, they will succeed in robbing you of peace, joy, and ultimately your life.

I stopped checking my email first thing in the morning several years ago after reading Tim Ferriss’ The 4-Hour Workweek. He said that one simple change would be a life-changer, and it has been for me.

It’s been called the "hardest word," but some women seem to use the word "sorry" as everything from a way to interject their thoughts into a conversation to a way of prefacing any request for help.

Sherlock Holmes is one of the most famous example of brilliant memory. And his talkings about the mysterious mental space, coat flapping, opening doors and yanking out crucial bits of arcane information isn’t something fictional. This mental space he’s talking about is called memory palace, also known as The Method of Loci.

From the new edition of Make the Most of Your Time on Earth, we’ve picked 50 absolutely unforgettable things to do before you die. These are experiences you’ll rush to tell your friends and family about, and will always remember yourself. It’s time to start ticking things off your bucket list…

Milkman’s strategy worked. Not only did she go to the gym more often, she actually looked forward to going to the gym because it meant that she got to do one of her favorite things: read a good book or watch her favorite TV shows.

Extreme success results from an extreme personality and comes at the cost of many other things. Extreme success is different from what I suppose you could just consider ‘success,’ so know that you don’t have to be Richard or Elon to be affluent and accomplished and maintain a great lifestyle. Your odds of happiness are better that way.

Here are 9 tips for you to get started on figuring out your direction in life when you have no idea what to do.

“Nothing can dim the light which shines from within.” ―Maya Angelou

So why does this one minor thing, getting cut off, have such a powerful effect on us? Why does one negative experience ruin an otherwise great day?

We all have the capacity to learn and be creative. The difference between the best and the rest is that those who learn how to nurture and think with the whole brain are the most successful.  For many years, psychologists identified creativity and intelligence as fixed traits. Over the last 20 years, significant developments in neuroscience indicate that the capacity to learn and to be creative is actually a skill that we can nurture and grow.  Just like you master a golf swing through effective practice, you can also master the way you learn and apply that learning to maximize professional and personal growth.

To continue Bazaar's celebration of Women Who Dare, the most inspiring quotes from the trailblazers who make us proud to be women.

No gamma radiation, spider bites or mutations necessary. A few simple tips from the blog can have you performing heroic deeds in no time — cape not included.

There’s a reason why “it never hurts to ask” is such an enduring cliche.  Most people are more than happy to help a friend in need, to respond to polite solicitations, or to put themselves out for others. It’s a truism of human psychology that we feel better — both about ourselves and about others — when we give than when we take.  In fact, a study at Canada’s Simon Fraser University found that children as young as two-years-old experienced greater pleasure from giving than they did from getting.  The impulse to give is hardwired into our nature.

Without advising anyone to work even more on the weekends, I can tell you there is an extremely valuable ritual you can do every Sunday night, before the week starts and the chaos overwhelms you. Life is too busy. Work life is even busier. By spending a few minutes on Sunday night preparing for the week, you can pump up your productivity. And I'm keeping this short, because few of us have time to even read through an article!

How many things in your day do you do because you feel you should? Well honestly, the word “should” should be eliminated from our vocabulary. The things we “should” do take us away from the things that matter, the things we must do to live our best and happiest life.

So you have a morning interview tomorrow but it’s almost midnight and you’re still wide awake.
You set an early alarm so you could be there on time. Then, for whatever reason, the alarm goes off before you’re ready to wake up. Sounds familiar?