Have you ever stuck your head in the fridge wondering where the hell the maple syrup was?
“Mom, where’s the maple syrup? I can’t find it.”
“It’s right in front of you.”
“I can’t see it, where is it?”
And then your mom annoyingly pauses Candy Crush, walks up, sticks her hand in front of your face and grabs the syrup from under your nose.
“Oh.”
It was right there and you didn’t even see it. This happens all the time. The most obvious and common sense ideas are sometimes buried beneath all the random meanderings of our minds.
I was having tea with someone who in 5 minutes unloaded their life story on me. “I hate my life,” she said.
“Good,” I told her. “Now what are you going to do about it?” When we delude ourselves into thinking everything is fine, sweep things under the rug and keep going through the motions we are in danger of murdering our souls. Slowly but surely.
When we let out that we are just not happy with how things are, we finally have a starting point.
“I’d really love to hire a coach but it’s so much money.” True. It certainly is. But there are so many other options to take advantage of, exhaust and implement before anyone ever really needs to hire extra help in their life.
Whether it's reinventing yourself, getting through a breakdown or starting a new project, there are super cheap, yet effective alternatives that can help you get there. Some of them are painfully obvious but under-utilized.
Here are 10 simple ideas for you that only a few people take advantage of. Be different.
1) Journalling
I heard Tim Ferriss say recently say that “journalling is like imprisoning your thoughts, worries, and ideas onto a page.” When we unleash onto paper we’re doing ourselves a favour by not letting the whims of our emotions and mental diarrhea run our day.
The massive plus side is that we get to extract all the mental processes into a physical form. It’s challenging to recognize our own destructive patterns as we go about our day. But when we journal and we can literally witness how often we think and feel the same things over and over again. Our fears, worries, concerns are so repetitive. We’ve been programming and enslaving our own selves for a very long time and now we’ve made ourselves conscious of it.
Pick a journal up at the dollar store. I can no longer justify the $20+ on a Moleskine (even though they are cooler) but luckily I have intuitive people in my life who’ve gifted me leather bound and beautiful journals to fill.
Write first thing in the morning for the next seven days. Let out what’s on your mind, heavy in your heart, lighting up your world, inspiring you and looking forward to.
2) Reading
Every challenge, obstacle, and opportunity has been faced before. People for thousands of years have encountered similar circumstances. Somethings never really do change.
If you have something you want to change your life, someone has done it. Thousands of times. Thousands of different ways. There is a book for it. Get mentoring and coaching from powerful, thought-provoking thinkers and authors. Personal growth, transformation, human achievement has been well documented for years. But don’t just read. Practice what you learn and share and teach what your experience has been with others.
Here are some places to start:
Psycho-Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz
Think & Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
Letters from a Stoic by Seneca
Choose Yourself by James Altucher
Six Pillars of Self Esteem by Nathaniel Branden
3) Friends
“Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure that you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes.”
Sometimes we need a reality check. The people in our lives might be toxic, demotivating or dragging us down. Slay the energy vampires and start surrounding yourself with better people. Be around people you love and who love and support you back. Just being immersed and spending long periods of time with loving, compassionate and empathetic people will change your life. Have long talks, walks, and dinner with them.
4) Fitness
This also banks on the above. When you commit to your well being you start finding yourself relating to other people who are taking care of themselves. You wave at the fellow cyclists or joggers. You connect with other gym rats at the water fountain. You exchange ideas at the juice bar. There are a ton of side benefits of getting physically healthy.
Start with just sleeping well, walking more or taking the stairs instead of the elevator and eventually you will feel better. You become more confident. Your clothes start feeling different. Your head is clearer.
The stronger you are physical, the better you can tackle your obstacles, mentally and emotionally.
5) Nutrition
Go to your cupboards and fridge. Get rid of the Aunt Junk-mima and replace it with 100% organic maple syrup. Dump all the processed foods (anything boxed, prepackaged, pre-prepared, pre-cooked) and throw it out.
Don’t eat what’s left because it’s there. Make a fucking statement. Put it where it belongs, down the drain, the chute but not down your throat. The shit we eat is killing us.
Eat whole foods. Stop eating out. Drink more water. Eat less meat (most of it is jacked on steroids anyway). Check out HolisticWellness for ways to make eating well affordable and easy to prepare.
6) Mastermind
Napoleon Hill swears by the mastermind. If you don’t know, a mastermind is a group of people who serve as a board of advisors for your life. People who have a vested interest in one another and give each other focus and energy to help lift each other up.
Hill had a pretty lucid imagination. He would close his eyes and imagine some of his ‘virtual mentors’ (people he’s read, knows extremely well) and he could envision the mannerisms, personalities, and wisdom of each person so that he can get the help he needed.
When you have one other person or more meeting regularly to discuss life, relationships, and business and helping support one another, it is a powerful force! The most successful mastermind I had lasted over a year and a half. We met every month. Now years later almost all of us are life coaches and still friends. The value we got in those meetings were priceless.
7) Accountability Partner
I’ve had an accountability partner for three years now. We try to talk at least once a week. Being accountable to someone outside of your primary relationships is crucial. We put pressure on each other and poke holes through each other’s bullshit and we track our progress and celebrate together.
Find someone you can share your goals, ideas and weekly objectives and themes with. Keep each other in check.
8) Meet-ups
Birds of a feather flock together. When I hang out with like-minded people I get so amped up and energized. It lasts for days or even weeks! Find local meetups where people share similar interests, passions and hobbies. Go and meet your people!
9) YouTube
If all you use YouTube for is cute cat videos and Jimmy Fallon, a) you’re awesome and b) you’re missing out on so much more! YouTube is a powerful tool if you want it to be. There are countless people out there creating incredible videos to help you change your life!
There are really great coaches and mentors that you can find that will help you on your journey.
Here’s a list to start with:
10) Podcasts
Quit twiddling your thumbs or playing candy crush on your phone. When I’m on the road, walking or in between, I’m reading, listening to an audiobook or listening to podcasts. Listening to people who I want to be heavily influenced by. If I can’t physically hang out with brilliant people or perhaps don’t know them, I want to submerge myself in their ideas and ways of thinking.
Here are a few I suggest:
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