Posts Tagged ‘Diet’

January 29, 2010

Seek Improvement, Not Perfection

Aiming for perfection is an easy trap to fall into when you try to make a positive change in your life.

Perfection is an impossible goal, and you’re almost certainly setting yourself up for failure if you set out to achieve it. A much better plan is to aim for improvement. Small, constant improvements, day after day, week after week.

Don’t beat yourself up if today didn’t turn out perfectly. Ask yourself, was it better than yesterday? or was it better than this day last week? this day last year?

Besides frustration and dejection, aiming for perfection can also lead to inaction. That is, you don’t even know where to begin so you don’t begin at all. Examples of this:

  • Timmy realizes that eating animal products is a pretty bad idea, but he can’t fathom the thought of eliminating all animal products from his diet. And so, he doesn’t eliminate any.
  • Sally would like to help out at a local homeless shelter, but she’s worried she won’t be able to commit to helping out every Thursday night. And so, she doesn’t help out at all.

Both Timmy and Sally have analysis paralysis (also known as procrasterbation). They’re thinking it’s either all or nothing, perfection or bust. Timmy would of course be much better off if he started with something as simple as Meatless Mondays, while Sally’s help at the homeless center would surely be appreciated even on an irregular basis.

What positive change have you been postponing, telling yourself you’ll make it happen when you have more time/money/whatever? What one small step could you take immediately to move you closer to your goal?

December 17, 2009

Not With That Attitude

One of my favorite sayings is “Not with that attitude.” Example of use:

Random friend: “I could never afford a house like that.”
Me: “Yeah, not with that attitude.”

It’s amazing the limiting beliefs we impose on ourselves. Such beliefs become self-fulfilling prophecies. An example would be a girl who becomes convinced that all men are the scum of the earth and not to be trusted. She might often tell her friends that there are no good men out there. Believing that, she’ll only allow herself to experience relationships which reinforce that belief, thus proving herself right.

After all, us humans love to be right!

Open up to grow

To experience personal growth, you must be willing to let go of your existing beliefs and keep an open mind. You have to allow for your existing world view to be proven wrong. You have to change your attitude.

Personal experience

Earlier this year, I first heard of the concept of lucid dreaming. A lucid dream is one in which you become conscious within the dream. You’re still asleep, but you’re fully aware that you’re dreaming. Experienced lucid dreamers can apparently conjure up whatever they want in their dream world. They can climb buildings like Spider-Man, dominate Kobe Bryant on the basketball court or have sex with countless celebrities.

Before I heard of lucid dreaming, I’d never experienced a lucid dream, and I probably would have told you lucid dreaming was impossible. But then I started reading quite a bit about it, and became open to the possibility of such an experience. Then, within a few weeks, I had three lucid dreams.

After that, I finally understood what Henry Ford was talking about all those years ago:

“Whether you think you can or can’t, you’re right.”

Attitude and illness

One of the big differences between people who survive life-threatening illnesses and those who don’t is attitude. People who believe they can’t beat cancer never do. Then you have people like author Allan Pease, who was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer in 2000 and told by doctors that only two percent of people with that level of prostate cancer live longer than 3-5 years. Pearse decided he’d be in that two percent; the alternative didn’t appeal to him. He kept a positive attitude and refused to believe the cancer would kill him. He’s still alive and well today.

What about you?

Consider your own limiting beliefs. Here are some common ones I hear:

  • I could never run a marathon
  • I could never give up meat/dairy
  • He/she wouldn’t be interested in me
  • I have no self-control/will power
  • I can’t lose weight
  • I’m terrible at remembering people’s names
  • I’m no good with children

Attitudes like that disempower you, and so they’re the wrong attitudes. Pay attention to your own attitudes and see how they serve you. If they’re not serving you well, you can change them.

Changing your attitude

For the most part, changing your attitude is a decision you make. Once you recognize that you’re holding yourself back, you simply choose not to do that anymore. Instead, you choose to trust and believe that you can do anything you put your mind to.

Beyond that, it helps to surround yourself with people who already have the attitude you desire. It’s hard to believe you can run a marathon if you spend your days surrounded by overweight slouches who project their own limitations on to you. But if you join a running club and spend more time with healthy and active individuals, it’s easy to pick up and maintain the right attitude.

Attitude determines altitude

As I learned from my experience with lucid dreaming, your attitude has a huge affect on the experiences you allow yourself to have. Believe something is impossible for you, and it almost certainly will be. But if you can open up your mind and allow for the possibility of new and different experiences, then the sky’s the limit.

December 11, 2009

Three people who inspire me

I get inspiration from all kinds of people, but the three I list here are personal favorites. I’ve learned a lot from them in recent years. Let me know who inspires you and why in the comments.

Deepak Chopra

“If you and I are having a single thought of violence or hatred against anyone in the world at this moment, we are contributing to the wounding of the world.”

As Wikipedia puts it, “Deepak Chopra is an endocrinologist, lecturer, celebrity and author of books on spirituality and mind-body medicine.” His self-described life purpose is to reach critical mass for healing, personal and social transformation, and enlightenment.

Chopra appeals to me because he blends science and spirituality effectively; his teachings makes sense from both perspectives. I’ve read two of his books: The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success and Life After Death. I still read summarized chapters of the former weekly, while the latter completely changed my beliefs about the afterlife.

It was my cousin who turned me on to Chopra about eighteen months ago when he sent the following video and subsequently blew my mind:

Chopra links:

Tim Ferriss

“Fear is your friend. Fear is an indicator. Sometimes it shows you what you shouldn’t do; more often than not it shows you exactly what you should do.”

Tim Ferriss does a lot of things well. His talent lies in deconstructing all kinds of skills and mastering them in no time. Among other things, he speaks six languages, holds a world record in tango, and in 1999 won the Chinese national kickboxing championship after just a month of training.

Fortunately for us, he’s keen to share tips and ideas, and does so via his blog and his book, The 4-Hour Work Week. I first read the book a little over a year ago, and learned a lot about developing an entrepreneurial attitude, efficiency vs. effectiveness and the Pareto principle.

In this TED talk, Ferriss talks about quickly mastering swimming, languages and tango:

Ferris links:

Steve Pavlina

“Life’s problems do not exist to beat you down. They exist to help you grow.”

Steve Pavlina runs a blog called Personal Development for Smart People and last I heard he was the highest-earning personal development blogger in the world, pulling in in excess of $100k per month. He doesn’t do things by halves when it comes to personal development, preferring to immerse himself in experiments such as polyphasic sleep and a 100 percent raw food diet.

Through reading Steve’s blog, I’ve been inspired to make many positive changes in my life, such as moving to a plant-based diet and working to improve my public speaking skills. He’s also made me reconsider much of what I believed to be true about the world and introduced me to a whole bunch of different concepts that have proved beneficial.

In short, he’s helped me become a better person.

Pavlina links:

November 19, 2009

Question your truth

“All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.” – Arthur Schopenhauer

Remember when the Earth was the center of the Universe? Me neither, because I wasn’t alive then. But apparently everyone back in the day believed that the Earth stood still and everything else revolved around it. Then along came a chap named Nicky Copernicus in the early 1500’s, with the audacity to suggest that the Earth actually revolved around the Sun while spinning on its own axis. Of course, everyone thought he was insane and the holy men told him not to be contradicting the good book or he’d go to the bad place.

But of course, Nicky turned out to be right.

About 350 years later, a Frenchman by the name of Louis Pasteur discovered that it was tiny little airborne organisms that caused beer to go sour and spread disease among humans. Poor Louis was ridiculed by his peers, some refusing to believe him even after he demonstrated his findings to a gathering of famous scientists at the University of Paris in 1864.

But of course, Louis turned out to be right.

In the 1940’s, some weirdos started speculating that cigarettes might not be all that healthy for you, and could even lead to bad things like cancer. The cigarette companies laughed off those ridiculous claims. Lucky Strike said their cigarettes didn’t make you cough because they “toasted” the badness out of them, while Camel found that their brand of cigarettes were the most popular among doctors, so how bad could they really be?

But of course, those weirdos turned out to be right.

Stories like that make me step back and question my beliefs regularly. I’ve given just a few examples, but history is filled with such stories of people thinking they knew an absolute truth, only to eventually be proven very wrong. I try to keep that in mind when I meet someone with a viewpoint different to my own. Rather than clinging to my pre-existing beliefs, I allow myself to consider alternative truths. In doing this, I often gain a better understanding of both the person and the subject. I’ve found that everyone can offer some truth; nobody is 100 percent wrong.

Back to another example…

These days, professional athletes and other good-looking famous types tell you to drink three glasses of milk a day so you’ll grow to be big and strong and oh-so healthy. If you don’t drink the cow juice, you won’t get enough calcium and then you’ll get osteoporosis and nobody wants that.

But wait! They’re saying we’ll suffer if we don’t drink what comes out of the giant boob things dangling from the female of another species? That doesn’t sound right. And look, here’s some craziness saying that cow’s milk actually does humans more harm than good, even going so far as to reference in-depth scientific studies from Harvard and the like.

I wonder, how will we look back on those claims ten, twenty, or a few hundred years from now?

November 6, 2009

5 daily practices to enhance your life

Below are five things I try to do every day. Introduce these practices into your daily routine and you’ll lead a healthier, happier, and more balanced life.

Meditate

I started taking meditation seriously about six months ago, and I’ve meditated for 10-12 minutes almost every morning since. In the last two weeks, I’ve upped that to 25 minutes to incorporate breathing exercises I learned at a recent Art of Living course here in New Orleans.

I find the benefits of meditation to be amazing. Practice quieting your mind for a few minutes each day, and you’ll notice you can think more clearly in pressure situations. You’ll gain more control over your thoughts, the importance of which cannot be understated.

“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly.” – Marcus Aurelius

Some people give up on meditation quickly because they can’t stop their thoughts from racing. If that happens to you, know that sitting quietly for a few minutes each day can still be extremely beneficial. The important thing is not to resist the thoughts that come into your head. Step back from them and try to figure out where each one comes from. Note whether each thought is positive or negative. Ask yourself how each thought, if repeated often enough, will affect your actions and emotions. Then seek to eliminate those thoughts which are of no benefit to you.

Stretch

When it comes to stretching, as with most other things, take your cues from nature. What does your dog or cat do right after waking up? He or she will have a nice, long stretch.

The importance of stretching is summed up nicely here:

During sleep, most of our skeletal muscles are normally “switched off” by the brain to prevent potentially harmful motion, and blood pressure gradually drops. Upon awakening, our muscles are oxygen-starved and loaded with irritating waste, and the brain needs a blood pressure increase to prepare the body for activity, especially standing up. All of those issues are addressed by a good stretch. The simultaneous elongation or contraction of almost every major muscle group flushes out waste, brings in oxygen, and boosts blood pressure.

One of the first things I do each morning is a few quick stretches. It literally only takes two minutes to stretch my back, neck and shoulders. Since I’ve started doing this, I’ve noticed that I suffer from back ache much less frequently.

Give thanks

“Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn’t learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn’t learn a little, at least we didn’t get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn’t die; so, let us all be thankful.” – Buddha

The best way I’ve found to get out and stay out of a slump, is to focus on gratitude. I recently started taking about three minutes each morning to write out six things that I’m grateful for; three of which I already have, the other three of which are coming my way soon. I phrase all of them in the present tense. Examples:

I am so grateful and thankful for…

  • My education. Lots of people never get the opportunity to be educated, but I got plenty.
  • My colleagues at work, for keeping the bar high and working their asses off every day.
  • My excellent public speaking skills.
  • My confidence and rapport with strangers.

The point is to focus on the infinite number of things that are right with your life instead of the handful of things that are wrong with it. You’ll be much happier when you do this, and you’ll attract more good things into your life because of it. Like attracts like. Haven’t you seen The Secret?

Fail

If you’re not failing regularly, you’re not pushing yourself hard enough.

History is filled with stories of successful people who were not afraid to fail, and that is precisely why they succeeded. Thomas Edison failed a thousand different ways before he invented the light bulb. Michael Jordan failed to hit the game-winner 26 times in his career. The Beatles failed an audition for Decca Records in 1962.

Society teaches us that failure is bad. Fail a test in school and you’re labeled lazy or stupid. Fail at sports and you get heckled. Fail with the opposite sex and your buddies laugh at you.

We’ve been conditioned to take the safe, less fulfilling route, rather than risk the embarrassment of failure.

I’m trying to get past that fear of failure by failing regularly. The only way I can do that is by taking chances, pushing myself out of my comfort zone. I try talking to strangers, asking questions I’m afraid to ask, trying new activities. My goal is to succeed at failing at least once each day. If I say hello to someone on the street and they ignore me, score. If I make a suggestion at work and it’s rejected, score. If I go rock climbing and I fall off the wall, score.

Failure is a part of life, so I best get accustomed to it and not let it bother me.

Hydrate

If you regularly find yourself thirsty, you’re not staying hydrated. Figure out how much water you could reasonably drink in a day, then drink twice as much. Drinking lots of water burns fat, boosts energy levels and cleanses your system. Soft drinks or sodas might give you a quick lift, but they do much more harm than good in the long run. Stick to water.

I use a Brita filter at home to fill up two big jugs I keep in the fridge. I’m not sure why anyone buys bottled water when a filter ends up costing you much less and saves on plastic waste.

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