Tag Archive for philosophy

The Connection Between Purpose and Happiness

road sign with purposeWhen we start to make a difference and live a purpose driven life, something amazing happens. We become happier and more fulfilled. I’m sure you’ve experienced this.

It doesn’t have to be anything big like going on a year-long mission trip or setting out to rid the world of cancer. Even small gestures that make a difference can have a big impact on how you feel.

We like to help out and make a difference. It doesn’t matter how small the act is. Helping a fellow student pick up a stack of dropped books. Running an errand for an elderly neighbor. Loaning a friend a book that’s changed your life. Reminding a fellow grocery shopper of a left-behind bag. All feel good, don’t they?

We’ve been social creatures who rely on each other for millennia. In that time we’ve evolved with mental and physical rewards for helping out and making a difference. In other words, it feels good to live with purpose. It makes us happy.

It’s one of the biggest reasons why living with purpose is such an important goal. At the end of the day, we all want to be happy, or at the very least happier than we are right now.

satellite dish with purposeMedia messages would have us believe that more material goods are the keys to happiness. They insist we need bigger and more expensive houses and cars. And more clothes, shoes, furniture, electronics, workout gear and the like.

If only we can buy and accumulate enough “stuff”, we’ll feel better. But it’s quite the opposite. The more things you have the more you worry about their maintenance. That takes away valuable time that you could be spending on something else.

The key to happiness isn’t to own more. It’s to live a purpose driven life and to make a difference in the world.

It’s part of the reason minimalism is becoming so popular. Uncluttering your life calms you. You feel more in control. And you have the time and mental energy to move toward your purpose.

A purpose driven life is one lived within our core values. It caters to our need to cooperate and work together. It strengthens our confidence and makes us feel needed and valuable. We find that we become happier.

couple talking on purposeThe moral of the story is stop buying stuff you don’t need. And, stop chasing that high-paying job that makes you miserable for 60 hours a week. The better choice is to start living your life with purpose.

 

 

 

JohnK 6-4-2017

chiforyourself.com home page

 

 Subscribe to GenuLines and get CHI FOR YOURSELF guest information and more!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What Is Your Purpose?

 

sand footprints to purposeBefore you take step one on the quest for purpose ask yourself a question. Is it all worthwhile?

I hope the first two posts in this series have convinced you of that. The next step is to figure out what exactly your purpose in life is. It’s a pretty big question, isn’t it?

 

 

It would be swell if I had a spot on answer for you, but the truth is that our life’s purpose is different for everyone. There is no quiz you can take that spits out the answer. It’s something you have to discover for yourself.

But I do have a few thoughts to share with you that will guide you along the way. In the end, your purpose is very much like true love. You’ll know it when you’ve found it.

What Are You Passionate About?
Start by thinking about all the different things you are passionate about. It doesn’t matter if it’s part of your current work or career, a cause, a hobby, or anything else you can think of.

Make a list and keep adding to it as you come across more ideas. Maybe it’s restoring old cars, redecorating your home, or sewing historical costumes.

What Do You Value?
One good approach to finding purpose is examining your values. What’s important to you? What do you feel would make a difference?

Do you value the right of every child to grow up in a happy home? Then you might make it your life’s purpose to raise foster kids or adopt. Do you value animal rights? You could make it your mission to raise awareness about the plight of wild giraffes in Africa.

What Elicits A Strong Emotional Response?
Think in superlatives. What makes you the happiest, the angriest, or the saddest? Strong emotion is a good sign that you’re very passionate about something.

It’s an indicator that a particular cause or purpose is important to you. It might be a passion for playing the piano. Or your passion for heirloom tomato gardening. Or your burning desire to put a stop to human trafficking.

girl on bungee with purpose
What’s Fun
Last but not least, think about what you enjoy doing. There’s nothing wrong with finding a purpose that is also enjoyable.

In fact, it’s important that you like what you do and are having fun doing it. If it isn’t fun, it’s much harder to put in the work and effort required to reach your goals.

Of course, not every task and every aspect of what you do will be fun. For the most part, you want to find a purpose and a project that has you excited to jump out of bed in the morning.

 

JohnK 6-3-2017

chiforyourself.com home page

 

stick figure of man on purposeOverheard:

“The purpose of human life is to serve, and to show compassion and the will to help others.”                    

                 ~ Albert Schweitzer

 

Subscribe to GenuLines and get CHI FOR YOURSELF guest information and more!

 

Why It’s Important To Find Your Purpose

Why It’s Important To Find Your Purpose

In the Day 1 GenuLines blog post we examined what it means to live with purpose and we got a brief look at why it is important to do so. Today, I want to dive a little deeper and talk more about it. Make the decision to live your life with purpose. Then see how your purpose can have a profound effect on your life.

graph showing purpose It Gives Your Life Meaning
When you decide on your life’s purpose, it gives what you do a lot of meaning. Every step along the way and all the work you do towards reaching your goals serves to bring you one step closer. It becomes much easier to get things done when you do them with purpose and with a firm goal in mind.

 

It Creates A Value System
Living with purpose also helps you define and set a system of core values. This will guide you throughout the coming years. You don’t have to waste time and energy each day trying to figure out if what you’re doing is right or worth doing. As long as it aligns with your purpose, you know you’re on the right track. That gives you a lot of confidence in what you are doing.

It Increases Your Feeling Of Self Worth
When you are living with purpose and working towards a worthwhile goal, you take a lot of pride in what you do. Each passing day and each small step that you take toward that goal. You’ll notice that your sense of self-worth will also increase. Use that feeling to propel you through the next day and the next challenges ahead.

You’ll notice that your sense of self-worth will also increase. Use that feeling to propel you through the next day and the next challenges ahead.

It Leads To Fulfillment and Happiness
Living a life with purpose gives you a sense of self-worth, and confidence leads to happiness. Give it a try during this 30 Day Challenge and create a purpose for yourself.

At the end of the month, you’ll notice that you are not only more confident, but also more fulfilled. The true secret to a happy life is being completely fulfilled by the life you’re living.

woman showing purpose

We are social creatures who need to make a difference and have a purpose, a place in society. We may think that material things bring us happiness. But what matters is how much our lives are meaningful, helpful, and purposeful.

You may find a noticeable increase in your happiness at the end of the month.

It’s Good For Your Mental And Physical Health
Last but not least, living with purpose is good for your health. Being needed, being helpful, and adding value to the lives of others. These are sure ways to have a measurable effect on both your physical and mental health.

Living a purposeful life decreases your risk of heart disease and stroke. It also protects you against depression. In fact, one of the best ways to fight depression is to find meaning and purpose in what you do each day.

 

JohnK 6-2-2017

chiforyourself.com home page

 

Subscribe to GenuLines and get CHI FOR YOURSELF guest information and more!

Living With Purpose And Its Impact on Your Life

Living with purpose. It’s an interesting concept and something that can have a positive impact on your entire life. When we live with purpose, we get more done.  We create meaning in our life. And we’re happier and more fulfilled.

That’s why it’s an important topic to discuss. It’s also what inspired me to put together a 30 day series of blog posts around it.

Over the course of the month, we’ll take a look at living with purpose and how we can start to live more intentionally. We’ll look at how this will affect all aspects of our lives. And of course, I will have plenty of hands-on tips and suggestions for you.

boy reacting to purposeLet’s start today by talking a little bit about what it means to live with purpose. In essence, it means that you know what you’re doing.

You have goals and are passionate about what you do. Instead of simply letting the days pass you by, you work with purpose to make the most of each day.

 

 

Living with a purpose has a couple of big advantages over mere existence. When you know exactly what you want to do with your life, you have a clear plan or path. You don’t have to get up each morning and then try to figure out what you’ll do. You get into action and keep working toward the goals you set based on your purpose.

You have a clear set of core values that you follow, based on your purpose. This will come in handy anytime you have a decision to make. Think of these values as a compass that keeps you on track.girl reacting to purpose

What’s most important is that living with purpose gives you a great sense of self-worth. You know what you’re doing and you’re taking action toward the goals you’ve set for yourself.

Not only does this increase your feeling of self-worth and self-confidence. It will give a big boost to your happiness. 

 

 

In the end, that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? We all want to live a happy and fulfilled life with meaning. That’s why it’s important to start thinking about living with purpose.

 

JohnK 6-1-2017

chiforyourself.com home page

 

 

Image for overheard and puposeOverheard: 

“Efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction.”

         ~ John F. Kennedy

 

Subscribe to GenuLines and get CHI FOR YOURSELF guest information and more!

 

 

 

 

The Words of The Dying- And Their Meaning: Next CHI FOR YOURSELF

picture of john kobik talking wordsThe end of your life. Something you may not like to think about, but something you’ll eventually face. On the next CHI FOR YOURSELF you’ll hear about the words people say in those final days. Words that don’t make sense to us, but somehow have meaning to the dying.

Our guest decodes the symbolism of those last words. Lisa Smartt will tell us how the language of the dying points the way to a transcendent world beyond our own.

Lisa Smartt is the author of Words at the Threshold: What We Say as We’re Nearing Death.

picture of Lisa Smartt words at death

Hear the “words” from Lisa Smartt  at 4 pm Eastern Time, 1 pm Pacific Time on Thursday May 18th, at chiforyourself.com.

 

JohnK 5-17-2017

chiforyourself.com home

 

 

Subscribe to GenuLines and get CHI FOR YOURSELF guest information and more!
 

 

 

We’re Talking Ayahyasca- Today on CHI FOR YOURSELF

 

A quick reminder: Our guest on today’s CHI FOR YOURSELF is Dr. Rachel Harris, author of Listening to Ayahuasca: New Hope for Depression, Addiction, PTSD, and Anxiety.

Rachel Harris talks ayahuasca

Rachel Harris PhD

 

We’ll start the interview at 5 pm Eastern time, 2 pm Pacific at chiforyourself.com. We’ll look for you then!

Next CHI FOR YOURSELF: High Marks For Ayahuasca

picture of john kobik talking ayahuascaOn our next CHI FOR YOURSELF we visit the world of Ayahuasca. What’s that you ask? Ayahuasca is a psychedelic brew from the Amazon rainforest. It’s considered a medicine and it has great therapeutic potential that’s just beginning to be studied.

Our guest will be Dr. Rachel Harris. Rachel was inspired to research how this medicine was being used in North America. She’ll talk about her findings, including miracle cures of depression and addiction, therapeutic breakthroughs, spiritual revelations, and challenging or bad trips- including her own!

Dr.Rachel Harris is the author of Listening to Ayahuasca: New Hope for Depression, Addiction, PTSD, and Anxiety

Rachel Harris talks ayahuasca

Rachel Harris PhD

Be here when we fire up the interview this Thursday May 11th and 5 pm Eastern time, 2 pm Pacific at chiforyourself.com

 

JohnK 5-8-2017

chiforyourself.com home

 

Subscribe to GenuLines and get CHI FOR YOURSELF guest information and more!

 

 

Self-Esteem Basics or: Your Life As a Dartboard

picture of john kobik talking self esteemWe want to make positive strides in our lives. But sometimes things seem to hold us back- like low self-esteem. It might be time to take a look at how we feel about ourselves. 

This article invites you to look at your everyday life in an unusual way. I think you’ll find it a good way to examine your self-esteem and stay on a sound footing toward genuine living. 

 

Build Self-Esteem: The First Step Toward Self Development

If you are interested in self-development but have low self-esteem, you’ll want to put your attention on that. Until you do, it will be much harder to accurately assess what you need to learn and change in order to achieve your goals. In fact, if you have low self-esteem it can be difficult to even see what your goals are.

Imagine yourself as a dart board. Everything and everyone else around you have the potential to become a damaging dart pin, at one point or another. These dart pins will destroy your self-esteem and pull you down in ways you may not even be conscious of. It’s important not to let them destroy you, or get the best of you. So what are the dart pins to avoid, and how can you keep them from hurting you?

Dart Pin #1: Negative Work Environment

Beware of “dog eat dog” theory where everyone else is fighting just to get ahead. This is where non-appreciative people usually thrive. No one will appreciate your contributions even if you miss lunch and dinner, and stay up late. You may find you are working harder and harder for less and less return.

Stay away from this, it will damage your self-esteem. Find ways to manage your work within the majority of the normal working day. If you have to compete with others, compete on your own terms. Don’t be drawn into power games or negative behavior that will bring on negative feelings about yourself.

Dart Pin #2: Other People’s Behavior

Bulldozers, brown nosers, gossipmongers, whiners, backstabbers, snipers, the walking wounded, controllers, naggers, complainers, exploders, patronizers, sluffers … all these negative behaviors in others will damage your self-esteem, as well as to your self-development program. But remember, it is not the person that is the problem: it is their behavior.

Dart Pin #3: Changing Environment

You can’t be a green bug on a brown field. Changes challenge our paradigms. They test your flexibility, adaptability and alter the way you think. Changes will make life difficult for a while and often cause stress, but when you look back you’ll see that change is often the catalyst or cause of self -development. Try not to resist it.

Dart Pin #4: Past Experience

It’s okay to cry and say “ouch!” when you experience pain. But don’t let pain transform itself into fear by constantly thinking of the bad things that have happened to you or others in the past. It’s easy to wreck a relationship by bringing with you the issues you had in your last relationship and expecting your new partner to be like your previous one. Treat each failure and mistake as a lesson, and move on.

Dart Pin #5: Negative World View

Look at what you’re looking at. Don’t wrap yourself up with all the negativities of the world. In building self-esteem, we must learn how to make the best out of worst situations.

Dart Pin #6: Determination Theory

The way you are and your behavioral traits are said to be a mixed end product of your inherited traits, your upbringing, and your current environment such as your friends, your work situation, the economy and even the climate of the country that you live in.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking that your genetics or upbringing will determine how your life goes. You have your own identity. If your father feels like a failure, it doesn’t mean you have to be a failure too. Learn from other people’s experience, so you’ll never have to encounter the same mistakes.

In life, it can be tough to stay firm, especially when things and people around you seem to keep pulling you down. However, building self-esteem will eventually lead to self-development if you start to become responsible for who you are, what you have and what you do.

When you develop self-esteem, you take control of your mission, values, and discipline. Self-esteem brings about self-improvement, true assessment, and determination. So how do you start putting up the building blocks of self-esteem? Be positive. Be contented and happy. Be appreciative. Never miss an opportunity to compliment. A positive way of living will help you build self-esteem and set you on the path to positive self-development.

 

JohnK 5-1-2017

chiforyourself.com home

Get The Upper Hand: 7 Tips For Managing Stress

picture of john kobik talking stressGenuLines has been quiet of late. And there’s a reason. Several in fact. I was called away from the keyboard to take care of some important family business.

As I write this I’m still on the East Coast of the U.S. dealing with things like elder care, finances, and even leaking water pipes!

Things are quieting down now but I got to thinking. Stress often comes in bunches, and if you deal with it in unhealthy ways it can turn your life upside down. 

So here are some points to remember to keep stressful situations manageable and to get you back to your “happy place” ASAP!

Peace

Article

man feeling stressTricky thing about stress. It sets off a vicious cycle where each incident causes more stress that makes you more prone to make mistakes. So, more things go wrong. It can make you feel you are losing control of your life and even your mind. But don’t lose hope because there is a way out.

In fact, there are many solutions to the problem of stress in our lives. Here are 7 tips to help you find your way out of the vicious cycle.

1. Recognize that stress has a place in your life

Make stress your friend! Stress has a genuine biological function that can be used to good effect. Based on the body’s natural “fight or flight” response, that burst of energy will enhance your performance if focused at the right moment. I’ve yet to see a top sportsman totally relaxed before a big competition. Use stress wisely to push yourself that little bit harder when it counts most.

2. Avoid catching the stress ‘virus’

Stress can be infectious. A stressed person tends to make life difficult for others in various ways, so those people become stressed too. To protect yourself, either give them space and keep away or practice relaxation techniques to ward off the infection. You may even be able to help them to relax – but the way to do that is to stay relaxed when you are around them, not add to their problems by handing out advice.

3. Learn from the best

If you are not yet able to be the person who keeps calm when everyone else is losing their head, then look for that person and learn from him or her. What are they doing differently? What is their attitude? What language do they use? Are they trained and experienced? Figure it out from afar or sit them down for a chat. Learn from the best stress managers and copy what they do.

4. Use your breathing

You can trick your body into relaxing by using deep and slow breathing. Breathe in slowly for a count of 7 then breathe out for a count of 11. Repeat the 7-11 breathing until your heart rate slows down, your sweaty palms dry off and things start to feel more normal.

5. Give stressy thoughts the red light

It is possible to tangle yourself up in a stress knot all by yourself. “If this happens, then that might happen and then that might happen and then there’s no hope for any of us!” Most of these things never happen, so why waste all that energy worrying needlessly? Give stress thought-trains the red light and stop them in their tracks.

Instead of indulging your imagination by figuring out all the worst-case scenarios, take the attitude that for every problem, there is a solution. Okay so that first thing on your list might go wrong – but how likely is that, and what can you do to prevent it?

6. Know your trigger points and hot spots

Presentations, interviews, meetings, giving difficult feedback, tight deadlines, background noise, travel, criticism from others … there are many causes of stress and they are not the same for everybody.

Make your own list of stress trigger points or hot spots. Be specific. Is it only presentations to a certain audience that get you worked up? Does one type of project cause more stress than another? Did you drink too much coffee?

Knowing what causes you stress is powerful information, as you can take action to make it less stressful. Do you need to learn some new skills? Do you need extra resources? Do you need to switch to decaf?

7. Burn the candle at one end only

Lack of sleep, poor diet, and minimal exercise wreaks havoc on our body and mind. Kind of obvious, but worth mentioning as it’s often ignored as a stress management technique. Listen to your mother and don’t burn the candle at both ends! Make sure you get plenty of rest … and if you find you lie awake worrying, learn to switch your thought patterns with relaxation techniques.

 

JohnK 4-24-2017

chiforyourself.com home

 

Subscribe to GenuLines and get CHI FOR YOURSELF guest information and more!

 

Tips To Help You Start (or maintain) A Healthy Relationship

picture of john kobik talking relationshipsSpring is a time that tends to be associated with relationships. (Love is in the air, etc) And maybe it’s time for you to think about your relationship. Naturally, CHI FOR YOURSELF doesn’t look at relationships in the usual, greeting card kind of way.

 

Bringing a special person into your life (or keeping someone in your life) involves mindfulness. 

There are some simple but important points to keep your attention on when a relationship is on your mind. So CHI FOR YOURSELF has put together a brief report on relationships. It’s free and you can get it by clicking on this FREE STUFF link. 

 

Free Stuff
 

And watch for more helpful offerings from ChiForYourself.com! 

Problems with FREE STUFF button? Copy & paste link– https://www.payhip.com/b/jsmb

 

JohnK 4-11-2017

chiforyourself.com

 

Subscribe to GenuLines and get CHI FOR YOURSELF updates and more!