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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
S.J. Scott
Read between
January 31 - February 1, 2020
The lesson here is that you shouldn’t schedule your week with hundreds of activities. That’s the quickest path to leading a mentally cluttered life.
Start your day by working on goals first thing in the morning, or some other time when you feel the most energetic.
The key to achieving anything in life is consistency. That’s why you should review your “goal project” on a daily basis and make sure you’re hitting every important milestone.
it’s important to evaluate your goals every three months, make sure they are aligned with your life purpose, and then create new goals based on what you’ve learned.
The reality is that your mental health can be negatively impacted when you feel unfulfilled with your work.
write down what you want and then revise it along the way whenever you recognize something you do/don’t want in your life.
Set aside 10 minutes a day to read everything you can about your interests or ideas for potential passions. Look at how other people have translated these interests and ideas into careers.
As you begin reading and researching, you may find one or more career options that jump out at you. Deepen your research on those topics to find out exactly what kind of training or education is needed, who is already successful in this area, what kind of salary you could make, and how long it would take to become proficient in this area.
Think about all of the possible action steps you’ll need to take to move the needle toward living your passion (once you have done your research). Make one long list of actions, then go back and prioritize and order the list. Break down each action into the smallest possible steps.
Do one concrete thing to get the ball rolling toward your passion.
Begin putting money aside in a savings account. You may need this as you make your transition to something new.
Start thinking about ways you can bring in extra cash in a pinch. Even if you transition from one full-time job to another, it’s always good to have a back-up plan.
Be sure to include as part of your action steps how you will move from your current job into your new one.
If you don’t know what to do, just do something. Take one small action in the direction of your dream.
relationship problems are a leading cause of unhappiness that people feel in life.
We create false mental narratives about other people, assigning to them thoughts and behaviors that may or may not be true, but that feel hurtful and overwhelming nonetheless.
However, if you find that most interactions leave you emotionally drained, then you should look for ways to either improve these relationships or remove certain people from your life.
our close relationships remain one of the fundamental components in life contributing to long-term happiness.
“Close relationships and social connections keep you happy and healthy. That is the bottom line.
humans are wired for personal connections.”
having high-quality relationships.
Prioritizing the relationship Open communication Healthy conflict resolution Mutual trust and respect Shared interests Some level of emotional and/or intellectual intimacy Acceptance and forgiveness Physical touch (for personal relationships)
Empathic (or active) listening is a willingness to step outside of your distracted mind and listen to their words in a non-judgmental way. Empathy is the grace note of empathic listening, as it allows the speaker to feel safe, validated, and understood.
As an empathic listener, you must be willing to: Allow the other person to dominate the conversation and determine the topic discussed. Remain completely attentive to what the other person is saying. Avoid interrupting, even when you have something important to add. Ask open-ended questions that invite more from the speaker. Avoid coming to premature conclusions or offering solutions. Reflect back to the speaker what you heard them say.
A loving kindness meditation focuses on developing feelings of warmth towards others.
Once you are relaxed, bring to mind a person to whom you wish to send loving kindness, and consider their positive qualities—the light of goodness you see in them.
“Let us not look at the talents we wish we had or pine away for the gifts that are not ours, but instead do the best we can with what we have.”
If you want to be present with your family and friends today, you can’t remain stuck in your thoughts about past relationships and old hurts.
If there’s an unresolved problem or hurt between you and another person, take action to resolve the situation. Rather than stewing about the past issue, initiate communication with the other person to talk through it, even if you feel you were “wronged.” It’s hard to reach out to someone who has hurt you, but the discomfort of doing this is far less than the slow torment of lingering on past pain.
sharing your feelings and pain, listening to the other person’s perspective, offering or asking for forgiveness, and discussing the future of the relationship. Break the “spell” of your internal story about the past by talking about it openly.
When you mentally replay a situation over and over, your perspective becomes the ultimate truth for you. It seems impossible to view the situation from any other angle.
The person from your past may never apologize, but offer forgiveness anyway. You don’t have to forgive them in person, but forgive them inside your own heart and mind. Clinging to your anger and pain only prolongs suffering and mental distress. You forgive to set yourself free from this suffering so you can move on to live in the present with a clear mind.
These thoughts of resentment, anger, and hatred represent slow, debilitating energies that will dis-empower you if you continue to let these thoughts occupy space in your head.
Forgiving someone doesn’t necessarily mean you reconcile with them. It means you let go of resentment and anger so it doesn’t further poison you.
Offering forgiveness might require you forgive yourself for something you said or did in a relationship. Reflect honestly on your actions and how they might have hurt or offended the other person.
if there is any part of your behavior that was wrong, you must accept it and forgive yourself for it.
we block our innate ability for emotional presence when we try to do something “more” for our partner. Attuned presence allows your partner to feel less alone with his or her feelings.
When you have an issue with your spouse, rather than taking a jab at them or making a disparaging comment, turn back to the practice of mindfulness.
Share the issue without blame or criticism. State your perception of the issue, how it made you feel, and what you need from your partner in order to restore your connection. Listen to your partner’s response and perspective without defensiveness.
Sometimes the only course of action is to say goodbye to those who continue to undermine your mental and emotional health.
You may find, for reasons you don’t completely understand, that another person diminishes your life more than enlivens it. You may come to a point where you simply don’t wish to deal with the emotional clutter and chaos another person creates in your life.
The person you are saying goodbye to may try to sabotage you, talk behind your back, or wound you in some way. Their reaction may be more dramatic or damaging than you anticipated, causing things to get worse before they get better. You might find the loss of the relationship more painful than you thought it would be, and you second-guess yourself.
Decide what “goodbye” means for you exactly. How much time are you willing to spend with this person? How do you wish to communicate with them, and how often? What will you no longer tolerate in your interactions with them? Being proactive about these decisions makes you feel more in control and calm about how to move forward.
focus on your own feelings rather than their faults.
Don’t try to talk yourself out of your grief or second-guess your decision because your grief is confusing. If you view grief as a normal part of the process of letting go, it will pass through you more quickly, allowing you to regain the peace of mind and joy that was diminished during the relationship.
In other word, when your environment is cluttered, the visual chaos restricts your ability to focus.
Make sure it immediately follows a previously established habit like having your coffee in the morning or brushing your teeth. This trigger will cue you to perform your declutter habit.
If you have a strong attachment to the past, whether through your thinking or your clutter, you cause yourself suffering. Let go. Release the physical objects that weigh you down. Focus your mind and your daily life on the present, and you’ll feel liberated and unencumbered.
“Don’t underestimate the value of Doing Nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can’t hear, and not bothering.”
The first step in cutting back is embracing it as a worthy endeavor—acknowledging that busyness is contributing to your mental clutter and accepting that less really can be more.
