Action Has to Come Before Motivation

We need to take small and effective actions to be the fuel of the motivation train! 

Action leads to Motivation.

People wait for motivation to strike, before they take action.

The feedback loop starts with Action, which motivates you, which leads to more action, which means you're more motivated to take action... :)

https://www.getflashnotes.com/podcast/meaningful-show/action-%e2%86%92-motivation/

Long Life Through Practicing Ikigai

I love how it seems like the Japanese have a word for everything.  And I'm even happier that English tends to grab onto foreign terms and make them our own!

This concept is deep and important to Japanese, and when you find your Ikigai, you have a greater chance of living a meaningful life.According to Japanese tradition, everyone has their own Ikigai, which is basically our existence.
It is a sense of purpose and feeling of wellbeing.Interestingly, it is often used by Japanese speakers to describe moments that bring happiness or to name something that brings joy to their life. In essence, it is the Japanese secret to a satisfying and fulfilling life.

What’s different with a routine and a habit?

Habits happen without us even thinking about them... they’re effortless...  like brushing your teeth or shampooing your beard (if you’re a bald man) or you’re hair if you’re not a bald man.  

 A Routine is a repeated action (or actions) that require a certain amount of effort.  

https://lifehacker.com/to-change-your-habits-first-change-your-routine-1842860611

Reading a book reduces mental stress

A thoroughly engaging speaker, Terry Small (otherwise known as The Brain Guy) has written in his newsletter about the calming effects of reading.  It doesn’t really matter what you’re reading, but it does have to be on the same topic.  

A University of Essex study* found that reading for just six minutes can reduce our stress levels by 68%.

Dr. Lewis, neuroscientist and lead researcher, states, "Losing yourself in a book is the ultimate relaxation."

It was found that reading slows the heart rate, lowers blood pressure, and calms our minds

Jumping around and scanning news on a mobile device or computer can actually feel the opposite  to relaxing... leaving the information consumer feeling drained and stress.

So find a book or blog, and immerse yourself in a mother world for a few minutes a day.

https://www.terrysmall.com/

Midlife Crisis Academy

An article about how Middlescence (like adolescence for older people) can be managed in a positive way to make the last third of life positive and healthy.

Focus less on proving yourself and more on improving yourself.

https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_to_overcome_the_struggles_of_midlife?utm_source=Greater+Good+Science+Center&utm_campaign=f4ffe34283-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_March_2020_Calendar&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_5ae73e326e-f4ffe34283-64697031

How to reprogram our subconscious

A podcast featuring  author Bruce Lipton who says sometimes the reason it’s difficult to make lasting change in your life is because the thing you are trying to change contradicts the subconscious programming that you received very early on.

His discoveries have shown that a person’s perception, not genetic programming, is what spurs all action in the body: It’s actually our beliefs that select our genes, that then select our behavior.

Our conscience is dictating our genetic makeup!

https://thriveglobal.com/stories/podcast-habit-change-rewiring-your-subconscious-mind/

Three Lick Hacks to Help Adopt Tiny Changes

NPR, as part of their Life Kit podcast, interviews the author BJ Fogg, a behavior scientist at Stanford University and author of the new book Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything.

We may have heard about the tiny tasks, but the author goes one further by associating them with, in the ways, with items that we may already do that will make the tiny change even easier!

https://www.npr.org/2020/02/25/809256398/tiny-habits-are-the-key-to-behavioral-change

A Better Day without adding anything to it

Psychology today has an article that extols the benefits of noticing positive moments and interactions in our daily life.  It's a way to improve our overall experience without adding anything to our busy schedule.  It’s excellent self care by simply consciously noticing what it’s spread there.

There are 50 examples!

https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/in-practice/202002/50-experiences-positive-emotions-you-have-every-day

Mindful Eating

A video from Greater Good extolling the benefits of taking at least one bite of your dinner in a mindful manner... savouring the feeling, smell, taste, sound and look of the food.  Meals will go from being something you plough through, to a sweet, relaxing moment in your day... and soon without any wiper at all, you will be calmer and developing better eating habits!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?utm_source=Greater+Good+Science+Center&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=14e46a2d03-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_GG_Newsletter_Mar_5_2020&feature=emb_logo&utm_term=0_5ae73e326e-14e46a2d03-64697031&v=dkP6vHSUAGA

Five ways Hiking Improves Your Health

1. Hiking keeps your mind sharper than many other forms of exercise

Hiking has trails means it requires navigating in a world that’s not totally predictable. Slippery dirt, overhanging branches and hidden obstacles, trail markers, and wild animals crossing your path—all of the things you might encounter on a trail require micro- and macro-adjustments to your route, which is good for your brain.

2. Hiking helps to keep you calm and happy

Hiking can happen almost anywhere—from a city park or public garden to a mountain trail—and give you that dose of nature you need to stay happy.

Studies have found that, compared to walking in a cityscape or along a road, walking in green spaces helps us recover from “attention overload”—the mental fatigue that comes from living and working in a world where computers and cell phones are a constant distraction.

Being in nature is calming, too, and studieshave found that people who spend time walking in nature are less anxious and suffer less rumination (thinking about the same worries or regrets over and over again), which should help protect against depression.

researcher Craig Anderson and others have found that being in nature encourages feelings of awe—a state of wonder coupled with a sense of being small in the presence of something bigger than yourself. Awe is a powerful emotion that has many benefits, including improving your mood and making you feel more generous.

3. Hiking helps your relationships

One reason is that many of us hike with other people, and exercising together can produce special feelings of closeness—and a sense of safety.

In one study, mothers and daughters who spent 20 minutes walking in an arboretum (versus a shopping mall) not only showed better attention during a cognitive task, but also had improved interactions with each other, according to independent raters. Specifically, they demonstrated more connection and positive emotions and fewer negative emotions after walking in the natural setting. Other researchsuggests that exposure to nature can help our relationships by making us more empathic, helpful, and generous.

4. Hiking can increase our creativity

Science is just beginning to document the connections between being in nature and creativity. David Strayer and his colleagues tested young adults in an Outward Bound program before and after they spent three days hiking in wilderness, and the participants showed increased creative thinking and problem-solving after the experience. Other studies have found connections between creative thinking and nature experiences, too, although they weren’t focused on hiking specifically.

Some scholars believe that these benefits for creativity have to do with how natural settings allow our attention to soften and our minds to wander in ways that can help us connect disparate ideas that are swirling around in our minds. Others suggest that the spaciousness and unpredictability in natural scenery somehow enhance creativity. Whatever the case, if being in nature increases creativity—which is tiedto well-being—it might behoove creative types to spend a little more time on a trail

5. Hiking helps cement a positive relationship with the natural world

Empathy Not as Good as Taking the Other’s Perpective

An article about how empathy may reduce our discomfort around “the other type of person”, but it didn’t change our feelings.

While we might hope that empathy would fuel tolerance, that’s not what this study found. According to lead author Elizabeth Simas, an associate professor at the University of Houston, empathic concern did seem to be associated with less discomfort with the other side—but at the same time, it came with more negative feelings. Those higher in empathic concern expressed a greater desire to censor out-party speakers, as well as “more schadenfreude when a person was injured trying to hear a speaker from the opposite party.”

“Empathic concern is an emotional form of empathy, while perspective taking is a more cognitive form of empathy,” says Simas. “That is, empathic concern involves reacting to another’s suffering with feelings of sympathy or compassion. In contrast, perspective taking does not involve an emotional reaction to another person’s situation.” The goal isn’t to feel what they’re feeling. Instead, it’s to understand why they feel the way they do.

https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/What_Happens_When_You_Tell_Your_Story_and_Tell_Mine