Post written by Leo Babauta. Follow me on Twitter.

The prevailing way of living in our Western societies is to plan out our lives, both for the long term and on a day-to-day basis.

We have planners and digital calendars that map out our lives, sometimes to the minute. We feel we’re in control, with plans like this.

But it’s an illusion, as I’ve said before.

We cannot control our lives to this degree, no matter how we try. Things will always come up to spoil the best-laid plans, and the more detailed our plans the more of a guarantee that something will go wrong.

And what happens when the plans go wrong? We are stressed out, because things get out of our control and don’t live up to our expectations. This is one of the greatest sources of stress for most people, actually.

Think about how often your days actually go according to plan, exactly — it’s pretty rare, because we have no way of predicting the future. No matter how hard we try. There’s always an email that will disrupt things, a last-minute meeting, cancellations and postponements, emergencies and fires to put out.

So if plans will almost always go wrong, and when they do we get stressed out, isn’t all the time we spend creating the plans a bit of a waste?

But what’s the alternative? Giving yourself to the moment. This will not work for everyone, I’ll admit: there are those who will have a hard time giving up the illusion of control, and others who are controlled by their bosses or peers and cannot work or live this way.

Still, it’s something worth considering. Here’s how to do it — starting with the don’ts:

1. Don’t plan. Planning is an attempt to control the world around us, but it’s a futile attempt. Throw out your plans, for now at least until you’ve decided this method isn’t for you. What do you do instead? More on this below. For now, just stop planning.
2. Don’t worry about the future. Will something bad happen? Are there things coming up that we must anticipate and prepare for? Of course, if there’s a massive hurricane headed your way, you should probably get ready. But otherwise, just realize that the future is unpredictable, and worrying about it is a waste of time. Focus on right now, and you’ll always be able to handle what comes.
3. Don’t have expectations. If you expect people to act a certain way, or hope that things will turn out a certain way, you’ll always run into problems. Forget about outcomes for now. Go into things without expectations, and they will always turn out perfectly (if a bit messy).
4. Don’t get annoyed when others act a certain way. Don’t expect people to act any way other than how they actually act. They are exactly the way they should be — even if that’s selfish or weird or aggressive. Those are their problems. Your problem is figuring out how you should act. I’d also advise you to try to understand others — why do they act the way they do?
5. Don’t overreact. This is a major problem when people plan and things go wrong — they overreact, and get upset and emotional and blow things out of proportion. Stay calm, because if things “go wrong”, they didn’t actually go wrong — they just happened. More on how to react below.
6. Don’t try to be proactive. This is a common prescription (being proactive) in management and business literature. And while I think the general idea is fine — do something to prevent problems from recurring rather than just fixing them after they happen — one of the problems this creates is always worrying about what might happen. And creating solutions before there are problems — if there never is a problem, you’ve wasted a lot of time creating the solution, and a lot of energy worrying about the future.

And now for the dos:

1. Do be open. What would it be like to go into each day without a plan, but just to see what happens? A bit scary, because of the lack of security and control, a bit chaotic perhaps, a bit like we’re a piece of driftwood floating in the middle of a churning sea. But in truth, this is what it’s like to go into each day *with* a plan — it’s just that we normally fool ourselves about the amount of control we have. So start the day with no plan, and be open to what emerges in each moment.
2. Do what you love. So what should you do, now that you have no plan? Do what you’re passionate about, do what excites you right now. Create something amazing. Pour yourself energetically into a project. Build something new. And what you think you’re creating might turn out to be completely different from what emerges, but you’ll have fun doing it and something even better might be revealed.
3. Do act, in the moment. Giving yourself to the moment doesn’t mean being passive and just letting life happen. It means acting, but doing what is best at this moment, what you are excited about right now, what needs to be done, in the present.
4. Do respond appropriately. Life happens, and we must respond. But instead of overreacting, we can respond calmly and appropriately. We can take the action that’s required, fix the problem, do what’s necessary to prevent it from happening again, and move on without it ruining our day.
5. Do accept. Accept what happens. It might not be what you considered ideal, but it’s what life has given you, what has resulted from your actions in an unpredicatable world. Accept it, respond, act, move on. Don’t get caught up in things not going your way, but accept that’s what has happened.

Again, this way of living won’t be for everybody. Some don’t have the freedom to live this way, and others just won’t give up control. Some will think this is a passive way of living, but it really isn’t: it’s just a way of living in the moment without being caught up in the future (or the past) so much.

And when we live in the moment, we’re really living life to the fullest. This is the gift of the present.

Thoughts? Please share them with me on Twitter.

—
Elsewhere:

• On mnmlist: The lust for new things
• On Write To Done: How to write a novel in 30 days

‘My life is my message.’ - Gandhi

Each of us lives a life that expresses who we are, reacts to the world around us, shows our passions, reflects our deep river of feeling and being.

We might sing out in joy, through our words and actions and expressions, we might hide in fear and pain, we might lash out in anger. Every thing we do, everything we are, expresses.

Gandhi’s message was his life, and yours is your life. What message are you giving the world, through your actions, how you live, how you treat others, what you accomplish, how you choose to be, every moment of every day?

Are you an angry rant? A ballad? An epic poem?

Perhaps a sonnet, a limerick, a haiku?

If your life is a poem, what do you want it to say? What would you rather leave out? What will the essence be?

Enjoy each moment as the perfect syllable, recognize the lyrical in the everyday, and sink your teeth softly into that cold delicious fruit.

—

This Is Just To Say
by William Carlos Williams

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

—
Elsewhere:

• On Zen Family Habits: 31 Simple Family Pleasures and Why They’re All That Matter
• On mnmlist.com: Unautomate: Why doing things by hand forces minimalism
• Unclutterer: Pre-order Unclutter Your Life in One Week and get a special bonus (this will be a good book)
• On Write To Done: 15 Basics of Insanely Useful Blogwriting

Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Mary Jaksch of Goodlife Zen.

Are you anxious at times? I am. Let’s face it, there’s plenty of anxiety to go around: lay-offs, relationship crises, pandemics, violence – and that’s just for starters.

Actually, anxiety is a natural alarm system that keeps us safe and productive. But it can become a chronic mindset. When that happens, it can deaden joy and stifle creativity.

How to tackle anxiety
In my life it’s not so much the big-ticket items like the current influenza or the economic meltdown that make me anxious, it’s the fact that I tend to over-commit myself. The result is that I’m always a bit behind schedule. Anyone else feel like that?

One way to deal with overload is to pare down commitments, as Leo Babauta describes in his beautiful post, How to be less busy in a busy, busy world. Another way is to change our ingrained thought patterns and emotional responses.

Luckily there are some wonderful techniques that can help us to stay relaxed, focused, grounded, and cheerful – even under pressure. After all, anxiety is not produced by something external. It’s an internal response to stress. We can train the mind to respond in a more skillful way.

I want to share with you how I stay reasonably sane, grounded, and creative in the midst of a full life. But first let’s take a closer look at anxiety.

Fight-flight-freeze: three responses to anxiety
Anxiety is a low-grade fear. It’s difficult to pinpoint the exact cause of one’s anxiety. That’s because anxiety is pervasive, whereas fear has a clear target.

We are hardwired to respond in three different ways when faced with danger: fight, flight, or freeze.

Imagine that you are hiking in a National Park. Suddenly you spot a bear. Faced with immediate danger, you instinctively choose one of three options: you either try to scare off the bear by making yourself look big, or by shouting (that’s the ‘fight’ response). Or you immediately turn and run to safety (that’s the flight response). Or you stand very still in the hope that the bear won’t notice you (that’s the ‘freeze’ response).

Let’s look at how these responses play out in everyday life:

1. Fight: When we’re anxious, we tend to be irritable. This is the ‘fight’ response. Because anxiety is pervasive and doesn’t have a clear target, we tend to snap at those around us.

2. Flight: Sometimes we try to avoid what makes us anxious. People who suffer from severe anxiety even avoid stepping outside their home.

3. Freeze: The freeze response produces procrastination and stage fright. I certainly know about these two. You too?

Note that I’m talking about ordinary anxiety, and not about anxiety disorders. If you suffer from panic attacks or phobias, read this useful article, or get professional help.

Anxiety is an emotion that sends our mind into the future. After all, nobody is anxious about the past, right? As human beings we tend to think in stories that are like mind-movies. Anxious mind-movies usually have a ‘what if?’ scenario.

So what winds us up into anxiety are particular thought patterns and stories. Take a look at the following list and see if any points seem familiar:

1. Self-doubts: Do you doubt your ability? Do you think you haven’t got what it takes, in order to succeed?

2. Wanting Control of the future: Do you want to want to control what happens in future? The truth is that even if we lay great plans, the unexpected can happen. And life has inescapable tides: we age and finally die.

3. High self-expectations: Sometimes we become our own slave-driver. I must admit, that’s definitely a weakness of mine. It’s good to step back at times and check out whether our expectations are realistic – and kindly.

4. Fear of failure: Are you afraid to fail? The truth is that all learning entails failure. Prof. Tal Ben-Shahar, an exponent of the Positive Psychology movement says, “Learn to fail, or fail to learn.”

5. Not being present: This is a key factor of anxiety. When our thoughts dwell on the future, and we stop being truly present, that’s when we can become anxious.

As you can see in the list above, all these internal factors are mental habits that we can change in order to alleviate and transform anxiety. And it’s the last one – being present – that’s the key to inspiration.

Inspiration lives in the present
There is an amazing short video with Brother David Steindle-Rast – a Christian monk. As a boy, he experienced the last years of World War II in Germany. He tells of great hardships: never knowing where the next meal would come from, having to queue for hours for a small pitcher of water, and seeing bombs fall all around him.

Would you be anxious in a situation like this?

Surprisingly, Brother David wasn’t anxious – his experience was completely the opposite: it was one of the happiest times in his life! How could that be? His explanation is quite simple. Because there seemed no possibility of survival and no hope for the future, all he could do was to be in the present moment. This created a deep sense of happiness – in the midst of all that suffering.

Moments of inspiration – like watching the video of Brother David – remind us of our life purpose. We feel uplifted, excited, and yet grounded. I think the reason why moments of inspiration touch us so keenly, is because they remind us of our deepest aspirations.

Sometimes we confuse aspirations with personal goals, but they are completely different. Aspirations are the answer to the question: “What do I want to give the world?” Whereas personal goals are the answer to the question, “What do I want the world to give me?”

Four ways to transform anxiety into inspiration
Here are four ways you can start to transform anxiety into inspiration:

1. Simplify your life: The best guide I have seen so far, is Leo Babauta’s lovely new ebook The Simple Guide to a Minimalist Life. He takes you right through the necessary steps to simplify your life. It doesn’t happen overnight, but can definitely decrease anxiety in the long run.

2. Write everything down: Holding too many ideas and plans in one’s head can cause anxiety. A very simple remedy is to record all your ideas, dates, and schedules so that you free up your memory. Buy a simple notebook that you carry with you, or invest in a smart phone that can store appointments and idea.

3. Learn to relax: The anxious body is tense and needs rest and relaxation. There is a good relaxation and sleep hypnosis recording, created by Jon Rhodes. It’s free and you can find it here

4. Practice meditation: If you really want to change the mental habits that keep you ensnared in anxiety, you’ll find meditation a real help.

I know it can be daunting to learn to meditate. And busy people sometimes find it difficult to set time aside to practice meditation. I’ve come up with an easy way to get into meditation. I call it the Three-Breaths meditation. You can do it in one minute or less. It’s a natural way to meditate and doesn’t require you to learn complicated techniques. I’ve created a short video on how to do it. You can watch it here.

The Three-Breaths Meditation entails taking a few moments each day in order to pay tender regard to three breaths as they flow in and out of your body. For best results, keep upright posture so that your body and mind are well balanced. A thoughts come and go, observe them with soft attention and bring your focus gently back to your breath. I suggest practicing this easy micro-meditation a few times during the day. You’ll notice that it brings you right back home to the present moment.

Of course there’s a lot to be said about turning anxiety into inspiration – that’s why I run a Virtual Zen Retreat focused on how to do it. But I hope that you can find something in this post that helps you to start moving away anxiety and towards inspiration.

Learning to guide our mind away from unskillful emotions, like anxiety, fear or anger, and towards kindness and cheerfulness, is a wonderful way to enhance our life and bring about happiness.

If there’s one thing you take away from this post, I hope it’s that ease and inspiration come from experiencing the present moment.
Like. Now.

Read more from Mary at her blog, Goodlife Zen. Check out her Virtual Zen Retreat How to Transform Anxiety into Inspiration.

“All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.” - Pablo Picasso

Post written by Leo Babauta. Follow me on Twitter.

Sometimes I lounge lazily in bed, in the middle of the day, with a couple of my kids and just abandon my worldly concerns, and just play.

Or I’ll sit and just watch them play, pretending they’re superheros or princesses or playing house or shooting each other with stick guns.

It never fails to leave me with a sense of wonder, of pure joy, of a return to innocence and a simpler time.

As grown ups, we’ve lost this childlike sense of life. And that’s actually a sad thing.

It’s not just about happiness and innocence either — being more childlike also helps us to be more creative, more imaginative, more innovative and open to worlds of possibilities.

Consider: as children, we are naturally imaginative, curious, able to play without a worry in our minds. Some qualities of young children that happen naturally:

• they live in the present
• they have no concerns about money, productivity, or being cool
• there are no limits to their imagination, except what they’ve been exposed to
• they play and lose themselves in play
• they create with abandon
• they are endlessly curious, and ask questions … without end
• they love showing off to their parents

We could learn a lot from children. Sure, they have qualities we might not want, but in my eyes, they are already perfect. We don’t need to mold them into people, we need to be more like them.

We lose this childlike nature, the nature we’re born with, because of society — it has certain institutions and systems in place that beat childishness out of us, so we can be more productive citizens and consumers. I think it’s unfortunate.

We shouldn’t abandon all responsibilities, but we can learn a lot from children and be more like them in some ways.

How to be childlike
We must first acknowledge that no change is instantaneous, that any change worth keeping takes time. But you can start today.

Start by deciding to abandon caution and to give this a try. Start by identifying the qualities of children you’d like to emulate: curiosity, play, living in the moment, abandoning worries, imagination, creativity, pure joy.

Observe children. Watch how they play, how they live, how they create, how they ask questions. Sure, sometimes they do dumb things like throw tantrums, but even in that you can see their pure abandonment of everything but what is happening to them right now. Watch and learn.

Play with children. If you have some of your own, great. If not, play with children of friends and family. Lose yourself in the play. Be a dinosaur, or a gorilla, or a villain. Have a joyous time. Make them squeal in delight, and feel free to do the same yourself.

Talk with children. Ask them questions. Answer theirs. Don’t talk down to them with baby talk, but don’t be too grownup either.

Play by yourself. Go outside and run around, jump, slide, kick a ball around, pretend. Forget about who might be watching.

Create like a child. Don’t be constrained with what people expect, what you’re used to. Be wild and have fun. Imagine that things can be different, that there are no limitations, and see what happens. Most of your childlike drawings will be tossed in the trash, but some might be put up on the fridge.

Be curious like a child. Look at things with a child’s eye, and ask questions you’ve never asked before, explore with a beginner’s mind. Don’t be afraid to ask why, and what if, and why not?

Live in the moment. Forget about all you have to do. Forget about what happened yesterday, or that conversation you had. Forget about that meeting that’s coming up, or those deadlines. Just do, and be.

See the world with new eyes. It is a wondrous place, a miracle happening every second, a source of immense fascination that can knock you on your ass if you let it. You are a miracle, and every moment you have is a gift. What will you do with that gift?

And last, if you have children, let them be childlike. Stop trying to make them grow up. Stop trying to shape them, criticize them, make them your own piece of clay, as Marvin Gaye said. Let them be, and enjoy the beautiful way they already are.

“Adults are always asking little kids what they want to be when they grow up because they’re looking for ideas.” - Paula Poundstone

Article by Zen Habits contributor Jonathan Mead.

The greatest change happens because of people that are deeply passionate, and have a great love for the work they do.

If you want to make a difference in the world, the single most important thing you can do is consciously and deliberately choose to do work that you are passionate about.

No other choice can have a greater impact on the planet, or your life.

If you’re doing work that’s boring, you probably won’t make much of an impact. You might provide people with some amount of value. Enough to pay your rent, enough to get by. But you won’t be inciting change. And you certainly won’t be inspiring others.

If you’re doing boring work, chances are you do just enough to not get fired.

But if you do work that excites you, keeps you up at night, and fulfills you… you’ll do more. You’ll give yourself to it completely. You’ll put in extra time, more energy, more passion. Because it’s worth it. It’s satisfying.

At the end of the day you’ll think: “My time was well spent today.”

So the real question isn’t whether or not to do boring or passionate work. The question is how to get started.

Five things you can do to move toward getting paid to do what you love:

1. Find your passion. This is all about your great love, and what makes you come alive. To get started here, ask: “What am I insanely interested in?” “What could I talk about for hours?” and “What would I do for free?”
2. Find your strengths. What we’re looking for are things you’re naturally good at, and the unique strengths you’ve had since birth. This is about contributing your gifts to the world. To get started, interview your friends, family, or peers and ask them what three things you’re naturally talented at.
3. Find your value. Finding the intersection between what you’re good at and what people are willing to pay you for is what it all boils down to. If you can’t find a way to get paid to do what you love, the other stuff doesn’t really matter. So it’s worth spending some time figuring this out. To get started, think about the benefits you’ll give others by contributing your value. Think about whether or not there is a desperate pain or a deep passion involved in what you’re offering.
4. Make the commitment. I think, more than any other reason, people fail to succeed is because they fail to commit. Thinking “I don’t know” or “maybe someday” will not get you to the point of doing what you’re passionate about for a living. It takes an uncompromising commitment to make this change for yourself. Instead of thinking “I don’t know,” think “I’ll figure it out.” Remember, paths are made by walking.
5. Be willing to let go. As much as you might want to make this change for yourself, it can be hard to let go of the old patterns of thinking and behaving. A lot of us have ideas that “work shouldn’t be fun” or “you should just suck it up.” Breaking down those beliefs can be difficult, but moving toward a new direction is most definitely worth it.
6. What will you give up? You might not think that you have time to take on a new endeavor, and you’re right. You won’t have time until you make the time. There are a lot of things we place in our schedules that we think we must do. But in reality, our world wouldn’t collapse if we chose something else. Make a list of all the activities and time sinks that you’ll give up in order to make time for your new journey.
7. Will you say Yes to yourself? You may want to become a writer, dentist, life coach, painter, or public speaker. If you know that this is what you’re meant to do, then give yourself permission to call yourself that… even if you’re not established yet. And even if you don’t make a full time income from it. Own your passion, completely and unreservedly.

While there is more to your journey than just these seven things, this is a huge start. Clarity and commitment are the biggest steps, the rest is easy. One foot in front of the other.

You will get there. No one can stop you if you want it enough.

And remember, the world needs you to do what you love. Nothing else can create more change, or have a greater impact.

Give yourself permission. We need your gifts.

This article was written by Zen Habits contributor, Jonathan Mead of Illuminated Mind.

Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Steve of Freedom Education.

This strategy works so well and it’s so simple.  You can do this at home, at work, with friends, family or even with anyone at all.

You could even do it with a stranger.  What the heck am I talking about?

I’m talking about feeling good.  There is something you can do right now that will make you feel better almost instantly and here’s how to do it.

In order to feel better fast, you want to stop thinking about yourself and you want to turn your attention to others.  You want to start thinking about someone else.  And when you do this, you want to do something very specific… you want to tell that other person how much you appreciate them.

It’s sounds so simple, doesn’t it?

Well it works and here’s why.  When you tell someone how much you appreciate them, you make them feel better; and when you make someone else feel better, you also feel better.

That’s the trick.  Make others feel better and you’ll feel better – and what better way to make others feel better than by letting them know that you appreciate them.

Here are 3 ways to show your appreciate for others and feel better fast:

1. Appreciate your Boss.

I remember this one time when I was working full time as an engineer.  All the employees received an email from the president.  It was about Christmas time and the president of our company decided to give everyone an extra two days of paid holidays.  ”Wow, is that ever nice of him!” I thought to myself.  Then I walked over to the presidents office and personally shook his hand and thanked him.  That put a smile on his face and it put one on mine too!

In some cases you might be the boss – maybe you run your own business.  In that case the best way to appreciate the boss is to do something to nourish yourself.  I love playing hockey so what I find works for me is setting some time aside to play hockey – when I put my interests first is shows greater appreciation for what is important to me.

2. Appreciate your Parents.

Just the other day I was in the grocery store and saw two University students in line at the cash.  It made me think of the time when I was in school and had very little money.  It was at this time that I borrowed money from my parents so I could put food on the table and pay the bills.  I felt such a deep appreciation for my parents that I decided to phone them up.

I got on the phone and dialed.  My dad picked up:

Dad: “Hello”

Steve: “Hey dad I just saw some students at the grocery store and it reminded me of that time when I had no money when I was in school.  I just wanted to let you know that if I didn’t have money for groceries and living I wouldn’t have been able to finish my degree.  I really appreciate what both you and mom did, working those extra hours to put me through University.”

I think my dad was stunned because there was silence on the phone.  Then he suddenly spoke again,

Dad: “Well, it was the right thing for us to do and your welcome.”

That made me feel awesome, and I think it gave my dad some of that awesomeness too :)

3. Appreciate Your Neighbor. My neighbor John is a very hard worker and a really handy guy.  He knows his tools and always has great advice for making house repairs, doing landscaping, etc.  Without John life would be much more difficult.  He’s the type of guy that every neighborhood should have because he makes life easier.

John just loves beer.  So one afternoon I was driving home and I thought, “I’m going to pick up John some beer,” and so I did.

I remember the look on his face when I gave him the beer.  He was shocked and all I said was, “I really appreciate the extra effort you make to help us out with house repairs, letting us borrow your tools and that sort of thing so here’s a case of beer to show our appreciation.  Thank you so much.”

He looked so happy and I felt happy too.

These are just a few examples of how I’ve shown appreciation for the people in my life, but there are many others.

How do you show appreciation for the people in your life?

Read more from Steve at Freedom Education – Mind Power for Your Personal Growth, or see his ebook, The Genius Within YOU.

Post written by Leo Babauta. Follow me on Twitter.

There’s too much emphasis these days on productivity, on hyperefficiency, on squeezing the most production out of every last minute.

People have forgotten how to relax. How to be lazy. How to enjoy life.

Try this: read some of the best books, magazines and blogs on productivity, and see how many will tell you how to get the most out of the time you spend waiting, how to maximize your energy, how to make use of your commute time, how to make every meeting more effective, how to get more out of your workday, how to crank out more widgets.

People are working longer hours, constantly checking their inboxes, constantly focused on Getting More Done.

But to what end?

Are we producing more in order to make more money for corporations? Or to make more money for ourselves? Or just to hold on to our jobs — jobs we might not like anyway?

It’s possible we’re trying to get more done because we love doing it — and if that’s the case, that’s wonderful. But even then, working long hours and neglecting the rest of life isn’t always the best idea. Sometimes it’s good to Get Less Done, to relax, to breathe.

Let’s take a brief look at how to do that.

The Beauty of Getting Less Done
While working long hours and cranking out a lot of widgets is one way to go, another is to work on important things, to create amazing things, and then to relax.

I’m not saying you should surf the web all day, or take naps all afternoon … but why not? Why not enjoy a lovely nap? Why not take a long lunch and then a siesta? Why not enjoy a good book?

I get people who ask me all the time, “What should I do on those days when I can’t seem to be productive?”

My answer: “Enjoy it!”

Sure, we need to produce sometimes, especially if we have to pay the bills, but an obsession with productivity is unhealthy. When you can’t get yourself to be productive, relax. Let go of the need to be hyperefficient. Stop feeling guilty about enjoying yourself.

But what if you can’t motivate yourself … ever? Sure, that can be a problem. But if you relax, and enjoy yourself, you’ll be happier. And if you work when you get excited, on things you’re excited about, and create amazing things, that’s motivation. Not forcing yourself to work when you don’t want to, on things you don’t want to work on — motivation is doing things you love, when you get excited.

It’s how I work every day. I work on lots of projects, on things I really care about, with people I enjoy working with. (See my guide to becoming self-employed if you’d like to do the same.)

How to Relax
It’s funny that I’d even need a section on this topic — how to relax. It seems like it should be something we all know how to do. After all, aren’t we constantly searching for ways to be less lazy? And doesn’t it logically follow that we already know how to be lazy?

It’s possible you already have mastered the art of relaxing. And if so, congratulations. You are a Get Less Done master. All you need now, perhaps, is to let go of the guilt you might feel, and enjoy this relaxation.

But for those of you who have forgotten how to relax, you’re going to have a tougher time. Here’s a hint: don’t stress out about it. If you don’t know how to relax, it’s OK. Breathe. Take it slowly. One step at a time.

Some steps:

• Take 5 minutes to go outside for a walk. Breathe the fresh air.
• Give yourself more time to do things. More time means less rush.
• After work, get outside, take in nature, run around if you can.
• Play. Play like a child. Play with a child. Play when you work.
• Give yourself a day off. Sleep. Watch TV. Eat bon bons.
• At work, give yourself an hour off. Don’t try to be productive. Just have fun.
• Work with someone who is exciting. Get excited about a project.
• Take evenings off. Seriously, no working in the evenings.
• Get a massage.
• Breathe.

Step by step, learn to relax. Learn that productivity isn’t everything. Creating is great, but you don’t need to fill every second with work. When you do work, get excited, pour yourself into it, work on important, high-impact tasks … and then relax.

—
Post suggested by Noemi.

Also: please help a good cause: Why You Should Help Guampedia Survive

—
Read more about simple productivity, focus and getting great things done in my book, The Power of Less.

Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Steven Aitchison of Change Your Thoughts.

We all know how destructive viruses on our computer can be and how important it is to have virus protection installed. However we’re not so careful when it comes to protecting our own minds with the, often devastating, effects our own thoughts can have on it.

The more serious of these thought viruses can lead to mental health problems such as loss of confidence, mild depression, self esteem issues, and a distorted perception of ourselves.

Science has shown that there is a link between physical and mental well being and positive attitudes in life. When you are happy and content with life and your thought processes are working correctly your brain releases endorphins which is your brains way of dealing with pain and making your feel happier. Your brain also releases something called Gamma Globulin to strengthen your immune system and another chemical called Interferon which combats viruses, infections and even cancer.

How then do we combat these thought viruses and protect our minds in order to stay healthy mentally and physically.

The answer could be ‘thought awareness’. This is when we recognize the thoughts that could lead to a downward spiral of negative emotion resulting in mental and physical problems, in effect viruses in our minds.

4 Ways to to control the viruses in your mind

1. Negative self talk.

When you recognize that you are talking to yourself in a negative way, recognize it for what it is; Your mind has tried to protect you from being hurt emotionally so starts talking to you in a negative way in order to protect your feelings.

For example; you want to start your own business and have a desire to work for yourself. At first you are really excited by the prospect, but immediately your mind start telling you it will be too hard, you will have to work very long hours, you will have to network, which you hate doing, you will have to do this and that and it will be way too hard.

As soon as you recognize these thoughts creeping in, it’s time to stop them dead in their tracks and carry on with your plans. Everything you don’t know yet is difficult simply because you don’t know it, but when you take steps towards knowing, it becomes less difficult and therefore easier.

When you recognize and stop the negative self talk your thoughts will then start naturally flowing to a positive mind state. Kind of like when you were a child and you believed you could do anything, only this time you have the tools to actually do anything you want.

2. Get rid of the past.

We tend to dwell on negative events from our past in an effort to understand why they happened. This can often occur with traumatic events from our past.

I had a client who had been trying to understand why a certain series of events had happened to her and she had been trying for 25 years and still getting herself upset every time she spoke about it. When I asked her why she was still trying to understand it when she had not been able to figure it out for the last 25 years, she looked at me with a blank stare. I then went on to advise her to acknowledge what had happened to her, not dismiss it, and put it on the shelf at the back of her mind. I advised her, at the moment, she was taking the item from the shelf of her mind every day and trying to analyze it when it would be better just to know it’s on the back shelf and get on with doing other things in her life. This was a turning point for her.

3. Use affirmations to train your mind.

The use of affirmations is well documented ever since the classic book: ‘Creative Visualization’ by Shakti Gawain back in 1978.

Affirmations are short phrases or sentences you repeat to yourself mentally in order to induce a certain state of mind. the classic one being:

‘Everyday in every way, I am getting better and better’ (Emile Coue).

By stating affirmations to yourself in a mantra like way and repeatedly over weeks, months and years your mind becomes trained to think in a different way. If you don’t think this works think about your fears for a second or two. people who are afraid of going into elevators have literally used affirmations and visualization to train their mind to produce a state of panic whenever they have to enter an elevator. So it is true in reverse. People who are confident have affirmed, at every opportunity, to tell their mind they are confident in every situation and confident enough to try new situations. We all use affirmations in our lives without ever knowing that we do so why not put affirmations to good use and consciously train your brain to a better way of thinking.

4. Open yourself to new experiences.

You are only on this earth for around 80 years, on average, if you are lucky, so why not try and experience as much as you can before you die. We all live in comfort zones and that’s great because comfort zones protect us to a degree. However comfort zones also stop us from learning about ourselves and growing as individuals.

We also we pass on our comfort zones to our children and we all want what’s best for our children so why not try to experience something totally new and step outside your comfort zone. Imagine what the world would have been like if the likes of Emily Panckhurst, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford and Alexander Graeme Bell had not stepped outside their comfort zone.

Apathy is found within the comfort zone, greatness lives outside of it.

Realize that every thought cannot be controlled

It would be naive to say that we can literally control all of our thoughts. It would be impossible to do this. Our aim is not to control our thoughts it is to steer them in the right direction. Right now your thoughts can be likened to 10,000 young children all running about, screaming and shouting in a very large playground somewhere, it would be impossible to control them, however imagine having a big purple dinosaur show up in the playground what do you think would happen. The kids would quieten down and start watching the show the big purple dinosaur was putting on.

So our aim here is not to control our thoughts but to control the big purple dinosaur and that can be done using a handful of techniques like the 4 techniques above.

Steven Aitchison writes about how to change your thoughts for a better life at his own blog: Change Your Thoughts. If you enjoyed this article, you may like to subscribe to his feed, follow him on Twitter or read one of his most popular articles, 7 Irrational Thoughts That Disrupt Your Life.

“Clocks slay time… time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels; only when the clock stops does time come to life.” - William Faulkner

Article by Zen Habits contributor Jonathan Mead.

Have you ever wished that time would just go away?

I don’t mean time or “existence” in the literal sense. I mean time in the way we count things.

Because we’re always counting, aren’t we?

• What time is it?
• How much time do I have left?
• How much longer until we arrive?
• I hate waiting so long, I don’t have time for this.
• We need to hurry it up.
• If we’re late, we’re going to be in trouble.

When you really take a close look at all the hangups we have about time, it’s amazing how much we obsess over it. We think we can control time, how long things take, and what kind of results we get. Time management, after all, is how we achieve success, isn’t it?

Or so we think. Because there are so many other factors to success that have nothing to do with time, and nothing to do with counting it. There are priorities, there is leverage, relationships, resources, focus, commitment, and all of these other things. Yet we call it “time management.”

What I’ve personally found in my life is that the more I try to manage (control) time, the more anxiety I have.

I’m always trying to…

• Make sure there’s enough time.
• Schedule things efficiently.
• Make sure I have time for this, or time for that.
• Not let time “run away from me.”
• Not spend too much time tracking time.

See how ridiculous this gets?

Jim Loehr, author of The Power of Full Engagement, says that “managing energy, not time, is the key to high performance.”

I have to agree. Trying to constantly manage and monitor my time has only led me to greater anxiety, and always feeling like I’ve not “done enough.” I’m always thinking about how I could have “spent that time more wisely.” But the purpose of life is to enjoy it, is it not? So can’t we perform highly without the anxiety of counting every minute?

I think so; at least I’ve been doing my best to live this way. After all, it takes time to ditch decades of time-bound conditioning.

So here are a few things I recommend to kill the anxiety of the clock:

• Pick a theme for each month. A lot of people like to set goals. Well, I don’t. I find that goals give me too much anxiety because I’m always measuring myself up against what I could have done better. So instead, I like to set a theme for each month and focus my energy on that. This month, my theme is improving my ability to focus. Less email checking, distractions, and more highly focused, deep concentration work.
• Work by the week. This has made a huge difference for me in getting the most important tasks done. Instead of setting my most important tasks for the day, I set them weekly. I’ve found this helps me better focus on the bigger picture. You may have heard the saying “We overestimate what we can do in a day, and underestimate what we can do in a year.” I was always overestimating what I could do in a day, and beating myself up for not getting everything done. By focusing on the week, I’ve eliminated this issue.
• Follow your rhythms. This may seem like a vague concept, but it’s about following the rhythms of your energy and listening to your body. When you need to take a break, take one. When you feel like plunging in, plunge in. Pay attention to what you’re drawn to working on and what you’re attracted to.
• Schedule when you need to. We obviously can’t remove all scheduling commitments. There is a benefit to having a specific time and date setup for a meeting. This would be difficult otherwise. What you can do, though, is give yourself enough time to prepare beforehand and to transition afterward. That way you won’t always feel in a rush; the prime cause of time-based anxiety.
• Flow. I personally love structuring my work around big, amazing and exciting projects. When I do this, I lay out the action steps and milestones necessary. Then I get to work. But the most awesome thing about working on big, amazing projects is that you are inviting the flow state. When you’re deeply passionate about a project, it’s easy to get absorbed in the work and lose track of time.
• Stand still. We spend so much time trying to “go places” and “arrive.” And we spend a lot of time preparing for things in the future. While this is sometimes a necessary part of life, it’s also important to play, to let go, forget the future, and forget the past. What is so important that it cannot wait? It will be there tomorrow. And there will always be more. So relax, and let the world pass you by.

I heard a story from a friend about some business men that went to vacation in Bali. They had purchased one of the typical vacation packages from the local travel agency, which of course, had a schedule of events. As they were sitting at an outside patio at the bar, they asked when the entertainment would be starting that evening. The hostess just said “Oh it will start when it starts.”

You can imagine how much this troubled the men. Uncertainty… lack of control. Not knowing.

The locals in Bali are famous for being an incredibly carefree and happy people. They are also well known for not caring much about measuring time, or trying to be on time. They don’t care much about it. They are also extremely happy.

Meanwhile, the business men’s day has been ruined. They can’t count the minutes till the evening’s event begins.

So what would you rather be: in control… or happy?

This article was written by Zen Habits contributor Jonathan Mead of Illuminated Mind.

“There is nothing either good or bad,
but thinking makes it so.”
- William Shakespeare, “Hamlet”

Post written by Leo Babauta. Follow me on Twitter.

One of the greatest sources of unhappiness, in my experience, is the difficulty we have in accepting things as they are.

Without judgment, without wishing for otherwise.

When we see something we don’t like, we wish it could be different — we cry out for something better. That may be human nature, or perhaps it’s something that’s ingrained in our culture.

The root of the unhappiness isn’t necessarily that we want things to be different, however: it’s that we decided we didn’t like it in the first place. We’ve judged it as bad, rather than saying, “It’s not bad or good, it just is.”

An example: In my recent post, A Beautiful Method to Find Peace of Mind, quite a few commenters thought my outlook was negative, pessimistic, or fatalistic … because I said you should expect people to mess up, expect things to go differently than you planned, and that you should embrace that.

It’s too negative to expect things to go wrong, they said. However: it’s only negative if you see it as negative. If you judge it as bad.

Instead, you could accept it as the way the world works — as the way things actually are. And try to understand why that is, and embrace it. As it is.

This can be applied to whatever you do: whether it be how other people act at work, how politics works and how depressing the news media can be. Accept these things as they are, and try to understand why they’re that way.

It’ll save you a lot of grief, because you’ll no longer say, “Oh, I wish things didn’t suck!”

Does it mean you can never change things? Not at all. But change things not because you can’t accept things as they are, but because you enjoy the process of change, of learning and growing.

Can we make this world a better place? Again, that’s assuming that it’s a bad place right now. But instead, you could say the world is just what it is — and that’s neither good nor bad. You can say that you’ll continue to try to do things to help others, to grow as a person, to make a difference in this world — not because you’re such a bad person now, or the world sucks, but because that’s the path you choose to take, because you enjoy that path.

As you catch yourself judging, and wishing for different — and we all do it — try a different approach: accept, and understand. It might lead to some interesting results.

“Be Content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.” - Lao Tzu