26 Ways to Savor Life in 2014

Improving your professional and personal results in 2014 might appear to be a heavy task that takes a lot of time. But, in truth, it's all about making small changes in a number of different areas.  

As we move into yet another year, we start to see the reality of life's fleeting nature. We can use this knowledge as an opportunity to see each day, each moment as a golden opportunity for enjoyment, happiness, and love.


If we live to age 90, from birth to death we have 32,850 days on Earth. Our Earth has been around 4.55 billion years. Our life here is just a blip.

This awareness provokes a lot of soul searching for many of us. I have thought, read and studied a lot about what comprises a happy life and have determined five areas that are key to enjoying life to the fullest.

1. Living in integrity. This is something you must define yourself by creating your own personal operating system. But in general it includes living in alignment with your values and your personal/religious beliefs; being authentic and honest with yourself and others; and living in balance financially.

2. Making a contribution. Whether through our work or otherwise, we all need to feel we have a purpose and have made some mark on the world. We need to feel that our lives have some intrinsic meaning. Having a passion and sharing it with the world provides tremendous joy and fulfillment.

3. Having good relationships. We need loving, supportive, and healthy relationships with romantic partners, family, friends, and co- workers. We certainly know the impact of bad relationships. Good ones offer us joy, contentment, and connectedness.

4. Being healthy. When we feel good physically, we feel good mentally and emotionally. We we feel bad physically, we feel bad all over. It is hard to enjoy life when your physical health is poor.

5. Having pleasure. There are so many things in this big world to enjoy--more than we could ever experience in one lifetime. If we are living in the framework our integrity, then pleasurable experiences should be pursued and enjoyed regularly--without guilt. Having fun is essential to savoring life.

As you examine these five areas in your own life, remember that first defining your integrity and creating your own personal operating system will make it far easier to define the other four areas. When we live outside of our integrity, it casts a shadow over all other areas of our lives.

Here are 26 ideas for savoring life and living it to the fullest in these five critical areas:

1. Define or refine your values and personal operating system. Know what is important to you, and seek to live in accordance with that.

2. Restore your integrity wherever you have stepped out of it. Make amends, correct the situation, shift the balance. This will reduce agitation and guilt.

3. Be true to yourself. Be authentic. Look for ways that you are pretending, acting to impress, or living out some other person's expectations rather than your own.

4. Examine your job. You spend many hours a day in this job. If you don't love it, or at least like it, you are frittering away a good chunk of your life. This is imperative for a happy life. Take control of your career.

5. Know your passions. If you don't know what you are passionate about, find out. Take the time to do this, and then find a way to regularly incorporate your passion into your daily life. Discovering your passion dramatically increases happiness.

6. Give to others daily. Share your knowledge, passions, skills, and time with someone else on a regular basis. This doesn't require a grand gesture. Impacting one life can make a huge ripple on the world. It feels good.

7. Show kindness. In the smallest interactions, be kind. Choose kindness over being right, indignant, smarter, richer, or too busy. Kindness feels good to you and to the recipient. And it's infectious.

8. Release some stuff. If you have loads of material things that you don't use, release them. Give them away to someone who can use them. This is tremendously satisfying.

9. Release some money. If you have plenty of money, use it for good. Contribute it in a way that makes one person or the whole world a better place.

10. Just listen. Listen to someone's story, their pain, their joyful event, their boring anecdote, their fears. Give someone the gift of really hearing them.

11. Nurture your friendships. Be the initiator. Express your feelings for them. Learn more about your friends. Be there for good and bad times.

12. Be the person you want in others. Define what you want in a relationship, then be that person yourself. Like attracts like.

13. Let it go. Be quick to forgive and quick to forget. Holding grudges and nurturing old wounds is unhealthy and makes you unhappy.

14. Know when to let go. However, some relationships can pull you down. Take a look at those in your life. Is it time to let go? How much energy are you giving away to them?

15. Expand your network. Actively meet new people. They can enhance your life, introduce you to new ideas, pleasures, and other new friends.

16. Love yourself. A healthy love for yourself with healthy self-confidence creates healthy relationships.

17. Communicate often. We so often misunderstand and misinterpret one another. Or we say things we don't really mean. Learn healthy communication skills and use them often, particularly in your primary relationship.

18. Educate yourself on nutrition. Read books, blogs, or magazines about proper eating for good health. Then eat that way. If you are unhealthy, it will undermine your happiness in all areas of your life.

19. Go outside every day. Sunlight boosts your mood and provides vitamin D. Being in nature enlivens your soul and makes you feel connected to the world around you.

20. Get moving. You know this. Get some exercise. Walk, bike, run, swim, dance, stretch, lift weights. You can make it fun. Take care of this remarkable house for your soul.

21. Cut back, simplify, reduce stress. Find balance in your life by letting some things go. You can't do or be everything. Pick a few things, and enjoy them fully. Identify where you are stressed, and deal with it.

22. Find an outlet. There are difficult times in every life. Find someone, a coach, counselor, minister, or friend, who can help you through them. Talking about your problems with someone trusted helps you heal and cope and stay mentally and emotionally healthy.

23. Play often. Play shouldn't end at childhood. Have fun regularly. Define what is fun for you and go do it every week.

24. Increase your travel. The world truly is your oyster. There is so much to explore and see and enjoy. Pick some places that intrigue you. Save your money. Plan some trips.

25. Unplug. Television and computer have pulled us away from real living. Actively reduce the amount of time you spend in front of them. Fill that time with pleasurable activities instead. Read, cook, play a sport, meet with friends, do something creative, make love, meditate, go to the theater, look at the stars, chop wood, carry water.

26. Think less. Be more. Act more. Negative thoughts create negative feelings. Actively seek to stop negative thinking, and just be in the moment. If negative thoughts and feelings are getting intrusive, do something distracting.

Pick a few of the activities above and savor them!

It takes thought, planning, and a dose of wisdom to create an abundant life--a life that you can savor. Experience teaches us these lessons, and wisdom helps us to embrace them.

All the success,

Peter Mclees, LMFT

Principal

P. S. Smart Development Inc. has an exceptional track record helping restaurants, stores, branches, distribution centers, food production facilities, and other businesses create a strong culture, leadership bench strength and the teamwork necessary for growth. Having worked with several companies throughout their growth cycle, we have valuable insights and strategies that would help any late stage startup, small or medium sized company achieve sustained growth and prosperity.

http://smartdevelopmentinc.com/

Leadership lessons from "It's a Wonderful Life"

Most of us have seen the classic holiday movie “It’s a Wonderful Life.” A lot of us have seen the film many times because it tells such a timeless and compelling story about how any one life can positively impact so many others. While the movie holds many life lessons, we feel it has a few leadership lessons as well.

For those who have not seen it,  “It’s a Wonderful Life” is the story of George Bailey—a man who serves and sacrifices for others. The Bailey Building and Loan lends money to poor people many of them would not own a home were it not for the BBL.  Mr. Potter, the arch villain in the film, is a greedy old man who thrives on exploiting people in Bedford Falls. He continually threatens the Bailey Building and Loan’s survival.

George Bailey is in conflict between his obligations and his dreams—He wants to get out of the small town of Bedford Falls (George remarked, “ I want to shake the dust off my feet of this shabby little town and see the world. I've got big ideas and big plans and I want to build big things.”) And as he said to his father at dinner one night—“I want to do something big and important.” His father replies: “In a small way we are doing something important—man has a fundamental urge to own a roof over his head.”

George’s ambitions are thwarted by old man Potter’s schemes. After his Father died George is on his way out of town. In a character defining moment George agrees to stay dashing his dreams of far-flung adventure—creating instead a more intimate adventure that has a far greater impact on his personal world.

The film shows that real influence comes not from title or rank (as George had no formal title in the town such as Mayor) but from attempting to connect and help the people around us.

The movie also shows us that as we make ourselves available to others with courage and caring our lives develop meaning and a legacy is created, not necessarily along the paths we intended but in small acts that make a difference. George Bailey shows that if we respond with generosity and compassion our lives would have meant something. But he didn't realize this fact until the end of the movie.

Scene: George, faced with financial and personal crisis and feeling that he never made it. He attempts suicide and Clarence his guardian angel (Read: life coach) gives him a privileged look at the impact of his life on the people in Bedford Falls

George Bailey only understands the dramatic difference he made when he sees what Bedford Falls became had he never lived.

Scene: George, in desperation and shock is walking along the snow-covered streets of what is now called Potterville—a town overrun by greed and selfishness.

Clarence  says “Strange isn't it, each man’s life touches so many other lives and when his isn't around he leaves an awful hole.”

In one of the most famous (and emotional) scenes in movie history: When the townspeople all came to George's house to contribute to the BBL deficit, George finally understands how his life of service has created deep commitment to him from the town’s people (when he was in need) even though he didn't know it.

George has a wealth far beyond material goods or power. Frank Capra reminds us that there is no substitute for relationships of integrity, trust and caring. Relationships that are forged through consistent acts of service.

Whatever our position, if we influence the lives of those around us, we are engaged in the act of leadership. And if we are leaders in any sense, we are also creating a legacy as we live our daily lives. Our leadership legacy is the sum total of the difference we make in people's lives, directly and indirectly, formally and informally.

George Bailey had created an enduring legacy because of his acts of caring, compassion, and courage.

Cheers to a new year and another chance to make a difference.

Peter Mclees