It is always the false that makes you suffer
the false desires
and fears
the false values
and ideas
the false relationships between people…
Give up the false !
and you are free from pain…
Truth makes one happy
Truth sets one free…
Nice day to you all 😊
One Love
😘😘😘✌️❤️
If you decide to walk away so easily
Just because I said some things I didn’t mean
In case you changed your mind about all this
I guess it’s just the way it has to be
You know that I am still in love with you
So many little things we have to do
So many different words are left to say
Instead you choose to go, a separate way
You may be the only love
I had ever known
And it’s got to last forever
Things were wrong and now it’s over
Your love is gone though mine
Is still around
If you decide you’re better of alone
Don’t forget to leave a little note
And take along the precious memories
That leave me pain and emptiness
If someone asked what I am living for
Without hesitation I would say it’s you alone
Without a doubt in my mind
Another one like you I’ll never find
You may be the only love
I had ever known
And it’s got to last forever
Things were wrong and now it’s over
Your love is gone though mine
Is still around
You may be the only love
I had ever known
And it’s got to last forever
Things were wrong and now it’s over
Your love is gone though mine
Is still around
When we feel stuck, we usually crave huge changes. We want to make radical shifts to turn our lives upside down because we believe that’s the only way to move forward.
Yet, in reality, those massive shifts rarely lead to sustainable changes. Instead, we often feel overwhelmed and readopt our old patterns very soon, which only leads to more frustration.
The good news is, we can rely on small yet consistent changes to help us regain our power over time. This might take a little longer, but it’ll lead to a more fulfilled and peaceful life in the long run.
Stick to the 80% rule for better health
According to the World Health Organization, more than one billion people worldwide are obese.
The main reasons for that shocking number are obvious: We spend most of our days seated and consume much more calories than needed.
And most of the time, we overeat because we’re so used to processed foods and huge portions — especially when eating outside.
In Okinawa, one of the five Blue Zones where people often live up to 100 years or even more, the population follows the 80% rule: They only eat until they’re about 80% full.
This is powerful because research proves it takes 15–20 minutes for our brains to realize we’re full. So if you stop when you feel like you’ve reached 80%, you’ll likely feel 100% full after a few minutes anyway.
However, you’ll avoid overeating and feeling tired after each meal.
Log out of apps you should be using less
If you want to spend less time on your phone but don’t want to delete certain apps altogether, log out.
Next time you want to use the app, you’ll be reminded of your good intentions and can consciously decide whether you really want to use it.
Don’t leave empty-handed
Whenever you leave a room, take something that doesn’t belong there with you.
E.g., When leaving the bedroom, take empty cups, bottles, or dirty laundry with you and put them in the right place. This will help keep your home tidy and organized at all times with minimal extra effort.
Keep a virtual shopping list on your phone
I started to use a virtual shopping list called Hngrya few years ago.
This simple habit has helped me save so much time: Whenever I realize we’re about to run out of something, I immediately add it to the list: soap, toothpaste, toilet paper, candles, pasta — whatever.
Next time I go shopping, I know exactly what I need to buy.
Since using the app, I’ve never run out of anything.
Plus, using a virtual shopping list has many more benefits: You have a better overview of what you need and make fewer unnecessary purchases, which helps reduce waste and save money.
By knowing what you need, you’re also less tempted to buy sweets and highly processed foods. And most importantly, it makes your shopping experience a lot easier because you spend less time thinking about what you need.
The #1 time and energy saver
While talking about groceries, let me share two more habits that helped me make a profound change: Meal planning and prepping.
Every Sunday, I create a weekly meal plan and write down what I’ll eat next week. I’m not a talented chef and don’t enjoy cooking, so I purchased meal plans full of simple and healthy recipes I like.
As I don’t want to spend too much time in the kitchen, I always cook bigger batches, so I can eat the same meal at least twice.
Without meal plans, I easily opt for processed, unhealthy foods — especially if I need to make choices when I’m already hungry.
But if I’m well prepared, I can easily stick to a healthy, nutritious, and simple plan.
By eating healthily, I feel better, have more mental clarity, and am more energized overall.
Be kind (even if the other person isn’t)
Instead of taking other people and their work for granted, try to show kindness and compassion.
This isn’t always easy, but most of the time, it’ll help you engage in genuine conversations and solve problems much quicker.
Just because someone reacts rudely doesn’t mean you did anything wrong. They might be having a bad day or might’ve received bad news just recently.
Train your “kindness muscle” by reminding yourself that someone else’s behavior is barely a reaction to you but just a reflection of how they feel deep inside.
If you can get it done within 2 minutes, do it
Whenever you have an annoying task to complete that won’t take you more than 1–2 minutes, do it right away.
By procrastinating and whining about it, you’ll only get even more annoyed and waste mental energy. Once it’s done, you can happily get it out of your mind and focus on more important tasks.
Stick to water as your go-to drink
You can save loads of calories and money by drinking water instead of pretty much anything else.
There’s no harm in drinking a cup of coke or orange juice occasionally when you really crave it, but make sure you don’t pour those immense volumes of sugar into your body regularly.
Water is simple, cheap, and healthy, so train yourself to choose it more often.
Get used to complimenting other people
Cheering for others and highlighting their positive traits is a superpower.
Most people are stuck with a scarcity mindset and believe they must compete with others. Yet, the truth is, life is abundant, and we can all get what we want while being nice to each other.
Instead of looking at others with jealousy, try to share your genuine thoughts with them.
If you like how someone looks, tell them. They might’ve spent years losing weight and working out, so your compliment might make their day.
If you realize someone’s making an effort at work, tell her. She might’ve been up all night to finish a presentation, and you might be the only one to acknowledge her hard work.
Life could be much more beautiful if we all supported each other and shared more compliments instead of hate.
Sleep can be the solution to most of your problems
According to CDC, almost 40% of adult Americans don’t get enough sleep.
And while most people don’t even take sleep seriously, the truth is that we can eliminate many of our daily problems just by sleeping better and longer.
If we’re sleep-deprived, we’re more prone to gaining weight but also more irritable, anxious, and mentally exhausted.
To ensure you get a good rest, go to bed at the same time every night. In the long run, this will help you fall asleep easily because your body will get used to a specific schedule.
Also, ensure to sleep in a dark room (or use a sleep mask), avoid eating big meals at least 1–2 hours before going to bed, and don’t take your phone to the bedroom.
Also, allow yourself to slow down at least an hour before bedtime so your body can adjust.
If possible, take the stairs
As someone who’s working from home, I move very little during an average workday. So when I do get outside, I try to make the most of my time by walking most distances and taking the stairs whenever possible.
For me, it’s a simple way to get some extra steps in without much extra effort.
If you’re struggling with money, track your expenses
Most people widely underestimate how much money they spend on luxuries like eating out or new clothes every month.
They work hard for their money but don’t pay much attention to how they spend it.
If you ever feel like you have no idea where your money went, start to religiously track your expenses for at least 2 to 3 months.
I used an app called Toshl to keep track of every penny for two years. This helped me realize that eating out and making random impulse purchases were the two major expenses I could control if I wanted to save money.
Your insights might be totally different: You might be paying for subscriptions you don’t even use or spending lots of money to replace broken items in your home every month.
The problem is, you won’t know unless you document your expenses. And the sooner you start, the sooner you’ll be able to make changes.
Keep a tiny diary
A few years ago, I came across a “One Line A Day Journal,” which is a tiny notebook to summarize your day in just a few lines.
Each page represents a day of the year: the first page is January 1st, the second is January 2nd, and so on.
In my journal, each page is divided into five sections, which means I’ll be able to use it for five years.
I started in 2021, so next year, when I open the page for January 1st, I’ll see my entries from 2021 and 2022 and then put my 2023 thoughts on the same page.
This is a great way to keep track of your life without a huge time commitment.
It literally takes you one minute to sum up how you feel and what you did on a particular day. Yet, it’s a fantastic way to reflect on the previous years and the progress you’ve made over time.
Each year, the journal reminds you of wonderful memories you’ve made and challenges you’ve overcome.
Take full control of what you see online
On average, we spend 3 to 4 hours per day staring at our phones.
And the truth is, most people allow their phones to make them feel worse instead of better.
Here’s a mantra I wish more people would be aware of: Nobody has the right to stress you out on your own phone.
If I see a post I don’t like, I’ll unfollow the author, so they don’t show up on my feed again.
If someone leaves a disrespectful comment on anything I publish, I won’t even waste a second before I block them.
I wouldn’t let a person enter my home and act rudely, so I also don’t let them do the same online.
If you think you have the right to piss me off, I’ll use my right to ensure you can’t do it in the future.
Your phone can be a powerful tool and help you live a better life, but you need to control how you use it.
What’s the point of constantly seeing posts you fundamentally disagree with?
If we spend so much time scrolling through news feeds, we can at least ensure the content we see makes us feel good instead of bad.
If you’ve ever felt like your emotions were “too intense” or “out of control” you’re not alone. Many people experience emotional intensity that seems excessive or disproportionate.
But the reason emotions feel out of control often has less to do with your emotions themselves and more to do with habits that magnify them…
The habit of worry magnifies normal fear into anxiety and panic.
The habit of self-criticism magnifies normal sadness into shame and hopelessness.
The habit of rumination magnifies normal frustration into anger and rage.
Mental habits take normal levels of emotion and make them far more intense and long-lasting. Which means…
If you want to feel more in control of your emotions, you must take control of the habits that govern them.
Learn to identify and eliminate these habits and you will discover that your emotions are far more manageable than you ever thought possible.
1. Relying on other people for comfort
Nothing could be more natural than to go to other people for comfort when you’re upset or in distress.
In fact, this is how most of us learn to deal with life’s difficulties — we have a supportive parent or caregiver in our life who is empathetic and comforting when we’re upset. The way they handle our painful emotions becomes a model for how we can deal with them as we mature.
Unfortunately, sometimes this process sometimes goes awry.
For all sorts of reasons, learning to self-soothe and effectively manage our own emotional struggles can get disrupted:
Some people, for example, have early traumatic events in their lives that sabotage this process of learning to self-soothe.
For others, they might learn at a young age that they can get relief faster and more easily by simply going to other people, and as a result, their capacity to self-soothe becomes underdeveloped as they age.
In any case, the core problem is this:
While it’s good to have other people as a source of comfort, it’s risky to rely on them.
When other people become your sole means of managing your emotional distress, it erodes your self-confidence.
This means difficult emotions will be themselves painful. But more than that, you’ll also have the fear of being inadequate to handle them yourself, which effectively multiplies the intensity of every painful emotion you experience. Being afraid of feeling sad, for example, will only make you feel worse.
The solution is to practice managing difficult feelings on your own even if you could get relief and comfort from someone else. Ideally, you would start with small things and gradually work your way up.
But regardless, you must strengthen your capacity to comfort yourself.
Your emotions will always feel out of control until you develop some confidence in your own ability to manage them well.
“As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
2. Being judgmental of your own emotions
Just because your emotions feel bad doesn’t mean they are bad.
Unfortunately, most of us are raised to believe that this is true. We grow up being taught that painful emotions are problems — like germs we need to be rid off or problems that need to be solved:
That we’re weak if we feel sad and discouraged.
That we’re broken or malfunctioning if we get anxious and worry “too much.”
That we’re sinful or morally deficient if we feel angry toward people.
But there’s the thing:
Emotions aren’t good or bad any more than rain or snow is good or bad.
You may not like certain emotions. Some may be uncomfortable or painful. Some may make it hard to do certain things. But to place a value judgment on an emotion doesn’t make any sense.
And the reason? Because you can’t control your emotions. Not directly, anyway.
You can’t just decide to turn up your happiness meter any more than you can decide to turn down your anxiety dial.
Emotions don’t work that way!
But aside from not being realistic, there’s another problem with judging yourself for how you feel:
When you criticize yourself for feeling anxious, will you end up feeling guilty for feeling anxious.
When you worry about feeling sad, you will end up feeling anxious about feeling sad.
When you put yourself down for feeling angry, you will end up feeling angry about being angry!
When you get judgmental about your emotions, you only compound their intensity and duration.
Think about this: No one goes to jail for feeling really angry. You only get sent to jail for acting aggressively.
As a society, we don’t judge people by their emotions, only their actions.
If you want to start feeling less emotionally volatile, stop criticizing yourself for the way you feel.
“The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.”
— Joseph Campell
3. Believing your thoughts unconditionally
It’s a funny thing that we’re so trusting of our own thoughts.
Perhaps because our culture tends to glorify our capacity for thinking and problem-solving, we make the mistake of assuming our thoughts are always true and helpful.
This is especially the case when it comes to thoughts about ourselves or how we feel:
After a coworker makes a rude comment about you during a meeting, the first thought that pops into mind is “Great, now everyone thinks I’m an idiot…”
As you drive to your daughter’s soccer game, the thought pops into mind that with a single movement you could swerve off the side of the road and your whole family would die. Then you immediately think to yourself, “Oh my God, what’s wrong with me?” The assumption being that your thought about swerving off the road was somehow true or meaningful.
But here’s the thing:
Just because you have a thought doesn’t mean it’s true.
Many people’s emotions quickly start to feel out of control because they insist that everything in their mind is meaningful. As a result, they end up thinking endlessly about every little thought, feeling, mood, desire, memory, and emotion that pops into consciousness.
But for all its wonders, the human mind produces a lot of junk too.
Often a particular thought is just random mental noise. But if you insist on telling yourself a story about it and what it may or may not mean, you’re inviting in wave after wave of emotion — and often not the fun kind.
If you want to feel more in control of your emotions, practice being skeptical of your own thoughts.
If a thought seems obviously absurd or ridiculous, remind yourself that it could just be random noise — as meaningless and unworthy of your attention as an unexpected gust of wind.
“The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.”
― Marcus Aurelius
4. Not taking care of your body
Ever since Descartes, we’ve been fixated on the idea that it’s brain and body, or worse, brain vs body. Think of the common sayings “mind over matter” or “it’s all in your head.”
Of course, this is ridiculous…
Your brain is part of your body. And your mind doesn’t work all that well without a functioning body.
Of course, this is obvious in the extreme case — deprive the brain of oxygen via a heart attack or stroke and your mind dies along with the rest of your body. But it’s also true on a much smaller scale….
Filling management holes that get created when the company gets bigger is important. Use these four principles to develop the leaders in your organization.
For a company to be successful, it must find a way to develop talent. It isn’t always possible to hire leadership from the outside. Being able to develop leaders within the ranks will help the company to grow and fill future needs that come about organically.
When I worked for a company that was growing, we knew we had to spend time with our staff to help them grow into the leaders we needed. I created a training format that we used over and over to coach up emerging leaders and prepare them to take on more responsibility.
This training was ongoing. We instilled four principles in their work. This translated the core values of the company into their daily actions. It gave them a foundation to build their individual leadership style.
It didn’t mean that everyone could take on a leadership role. Some people naturally make better leaders. Some people enjoyed keeping their technical focus and didn’t want to change. Others wanted the additional money but not the extra work.
To be able to take on more, the individual also had to show that they could handle their current responsibilities. The example I would use is that the third string punter on a football team wouldn’t be voted captain. While talent isn’t the only requirement, there had to be enough ability to do their job at a high level. If someone isn’t at the top of their game, they would not be viewed as a leader.
We were able to go from a staff that wanted the extra benefits of leadership (more money, promotions, authority to make decisions, etc.), to a staff willing to do what was necessary to improve as leaders. Instead of just showing up and checking off a box, they put in the work to get better.
But for those with leadership potential and the drive to grow their skills, we could provide them foundational knowledge they can rely on to be successful. Here are those four principles:
Principle 1: Take ownership
The first principle was to take ownership. They needed to own their tasks. They had to own the processes and procedures. They had to own the outcomes and the production output.
This is different than being in charge. If they are in charge but don’t own it, they will always find others to blame when things go wrong. They won’t step up to do the extra work necessary when something gets fouled up.
The reality is that there are always going to be outside factors to blame. It is easy to find a scapegoat, because today’s business processes are complex and interconnect with other areas. This gives us plenty of places to point the finger when mistakes happen.
Instead, leaders need to make it their job to keep pushing things forward. They don’t sit back and wait for tasks to be given out to them. They search for ways to improve the team and catch mistakes early to prevent them from turning into major problems.
We emphasized that this was the antithesis to the “us versus them” attitude. We broke down silos by having leaders willing to step beyond their area to work with other teams to solve problems and improve efficiencies.
When everyone takes ownership, people are willing to do what is needed without finding ways to skirt responsibility. By taking ownership, this also meant consistency. It was more than one-time effort. It was exemplified in the habits, routines and patterns, not just in the one-off.
Our leaders started to have more follow-through. They would finish what they started. They knew that a failed outcome meant we didn’t do a good enough job. They didn’t expect praise for their part while pointing to others as the problem. They owned it.
Principle 2: Use next-level thinking
How do you know you did something right? Most people look at their task. Did you accomplish the task or not? Did they do what they had to do?
For leadership, we needed to shift our thinking. Each task is important, and we constantly measured individual production versus our key performance indicators. But next-level leadership required a shift in perspective.
We taught that most people rely on linear thinking. They see a problem and want to point it back to one factor. Linear thinking follows quick, snap decisions without much analysis.
Instead, we needed to use systems thinking. We had to see the interconnection between various parts of the system. We had to see that the decision for our team to increase production caused a problem downstream. Our shortcut caused ramifications to the quality control team. Or our boost in sales by cutting prices meant we had to pay overtime to make up for the additional work, further hurting the bottom line.
Systems thinking helps see the full business systems, not just the individual parts. Solutions had to account for the full system. This would help them develop higher-level thinking. They started to see the forest and the trees instead of getting stuck in the weeds.
Next-level thinking also meant that they had to be excellent problem solvers. We didn’t want problem finders or problem magnifiers. We wanted people who would see the problem and work out a solution.
Related: How to Think About the Systems in Your Business
When they explained the problem to their boss, they presented the research showing how it happened, along with options for solving the problem and their recommendation. We taught them that without this, they weren’t helping us, they were hurting us.
Anyone can point out problems and make them worse. True leaders can see problems and find solutions. Next-level thinking translated to honesty. They stopped throwing each other under the bus. They didn’t lie when they didn’t know something. They would go find out the answer. They learned the rules so that when they had to break them, they had good reason to do so.
Principle 3: Respect time (your time and others’ time)
The third principle revolved around time management. Leaders needed to respect their time enough to have efficient time-management systems in place. They couldn’t let others drag them down. They needed the ability to work with others to be efficient, so the work got done.
Part of this training involved learning to prioritize. We taught them how to look at tasks on a grid, comparing urgency and importance to determine what to tackle first. We talked about hitting low-hanging fruit or tackling the big tasks to knock them out of the way first. We taught them how to see nice-to-have items versus must-have items.
Related: 3 Reasons Entrepreneurs Struggle When Building Business Systems
We presented numerous ways to look at their mountain of work and slice it up, so it becomes manageable. If they didn’t get everything done, at least we knew they hit the high-priority items and didn’t get stuck diving down a rabbit hole.
By respecting their time and others’ time, they were able to be more efficient. It didn’t mean everything suddenly got done instantly, but it gave them a framework, which gave us confidence in them. We didn’t need to micromanage their day. Instead, we trusted their ability to decide what to focus on.
Principle 4: Focus on progress not perfection
Nobody is perfect. Chasing perfection means that we forego experimenting or trying new things, because we don’t want to mess up. Trial and error, by definition, means there will be errors.
We had to, instead, keep making progress. This meant continuous improvement. It didn’t mean people were afraid to try. It meant we addressed flaws and obstacles and kept moving forward. We changed the measuring stick. We didn’t look for the small mistake to criticize. We looked at the patterns to see if we were getting better over time.
Being able to develop leadership within an organization can be the difference between scaling a business and plateauing. Organic growth means there will be new needs in the future. Filling holes quickly with emerging leaders is more optimal than looking to hire from the outside.
We used these four principles of next-level leadership to develop the talent within our company, so that as the company’s revenue grew, so did the number of people stepping up to help.
The great part of it is that these are universal. They weren’t specific to our industry or our product line. They are principles that can be applied to almost any business team to improve and develop leadership. Use these if you find that your company’s growth is creating a void in next-level leadership.
Think about the last time you had a really productive day—when you made a number of important decisions, crossed off key to-dos, and reached out to a few new connections. That felt good, right? Now think about a day when you felt as if you got nothing meaningful done. Maybe you sent out next steps after a series of back-to-back meetings, spent half a day listening to your coworkers vent, or researched Slack icebreakers instead of industry trends. At the end of that day, you weren’t sure what you’d accomplished, but you certainly felt very busy doing it.
You had the same amount of hours on both of those days, but in one scenario, you were in control and crossed off tasks that had a bigger impact on your company or career. In the other, unexpected distractions and assignments that don’t clearly ladder up to larger goals took up much of your attention. The latter are what I call distractors and fillers: the extraneous tasks and time sucks that prevent you from doing work that matters.
There are three phases to taking back control of your time: assessing how you’re spending it, deciding what you should keep doing, and learning to say no to everything else while still being a team player. The last part is often the trickiest because being helpful at work and nurturing relationships with your coworkers are both vital to your career growth. The key is to be mindful and kind about the choices you make.
Here’s a simple roadmap to help you reprioritize your time while still being a good colleague:
Phase 1: Assess your time.
Before you do anything else, you’ll need to take notice of your distractors and identify your most common time fillers.
Distractors are tasks indirectly related to your work that prevent you from focusing on your priorities. They’re inevitable but not always proportionate. Women, for example, are often loaded with the additional roles of emotional therapist, culture builder, and conflict resolver. And distractors tend to revolve around people and culture—like getting stuck in never-ending conversations or recognizing that an employee needs a pick-me-up. In a silo, these tasks can serve an important purpose in helping people feel connected, but they become a problem when they take over your to-do list. Write your distractors down.
Fillers are tasks that are directly related to work but often aren’t highly valued and don’t help you advance your career. In other words, they’re not the kinds of projects that lead to recognition, raises, or promotions. Instead, they include “office housework” items like scheduling the follow-up meeting, taking the notes, or otherwise being the memory keeper, organizer, or person who keeps the trains on track but goes unnoticed. List these fillers out, too.
Phase 2: Decide what to keep doing and what to stop.
Look at your list of fillers and distractors and start to evaluate how essential these items are to realizing your career goals. As you look at each task, ask yourself these questions:
Does this support one of my personal or professional goals?
Is this a fundamental part of my job description?
Does this give me access to a valuable connection or a different part of the business?
Does it bring me joy?
If you answer “yes” to at least one of the questions, then there’s room for that item on your to-do list and it’s worth making time for it. If not, add it to your “to-don’t” list.
Now, I wish you could just add stuff to your to-don’t list and—poof!—it disappears. Some things you might be able to just stop doing. Others may require buy-in from your manager or delegation to someone else. For each item on your to-don’t list, add the first thing you need to do to get it off your plate. For instance, next steps could include: call the head of a task force to discuss stepping down from a committee role or set up a conversation with your manager to discuss your goals and priorities.
Phase 3: Get comfortable with saying no—and learn to do it kindly.
Saying no—and doing it with kindness—is the most important skill you can learn to keep time sucks like the ones you identified in the previous steps off your plate in the future.
When one of those distractors or fillers pops ups, decline with confidence. Start with, “Thank you,” instead of, “I’m sorry,” because you don’t need to apologize for turning down a request. Say, “Thank you for the opportunity,” or, “Thank you for thinking of me,” and then add that you’re at full capacity right now.
If the request is coming from a client or your boss, you might not be able to say no outright, but you can still be intentional about your workload and say, “Yes, I can do that, but it will take the place of X. Are you OK with that?” If this is coming from a close colleague, you may want to be specific about why you can’t do it. If you’re feeling generous, you can always offer a different timeline (“I will be free in July”) or a smaller assist, such as sharing research on a smaller piece of a project that needs to be done. This keeps you focused on your goals while still coming across as a team player.
It’s too easy for last-minute requests, distractions, and fillers to take control of your time and to-do list, leaving little room for high-impact work. But when you start to pay attention to these hidden time sucks, you can prioritize the things that matter most to you and your career.
