The other day, I was reading a short article entitled “Eight Steps to a More Satisfying Life”. In it, I learned why some people are more happy than others, why some people are naturally miserable, and how the body and the mind work together to create our own individual happiness.
One of the contributing writers was University of California psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky who explained the eight keys to a more satisfied life:
- Count your blessings and keep a gratitude journal
- Practice both random and systematic acts of kindness
- Savor life’s joys
- Thank a mentor
- Learn to forgive
- Invest time and energy in family
- Take care of your body with plenty of sleep, exercise, stretching, smiling, and laughing
- Develop strategies to cope with stress and hardships
So while I was pondering how I was going to carve out more time in my day for #6 “Invest time in family” and #7 “Take care of body”, I came across another article: “Healthy Diet Helps Mood”, where an author talked about the importance of eating the right foods in order to be happier. He recommended:
- Eating salmon because fatty, cold-water fish contain omega-3 fatty acids which keep cell membranes pliable. I also learned that if I don’t have a salmon handy, I can also eat tuna, anchovies, sardines, walnuts, flax seeds, pumpkin seeds, or green leafy vegetables.
- Every morning I should eat some oatmeal, soy milk, and two scrambled eggs, which gives me tryptophan. This is an amino acid that helps in creating serotonin, the brain’s feel-good hormone. Check! I’m all about feeling good.
- In order to fight any chance of depression, I should eat spinach, which contains B vitamin folate, but I can also get the same effect with peas, navy beans, orange juice, wheat germ, and avocados (like in guacamole, with margaritas, though the latter was not on his list).
- Every day, I am supposed to take a Vitamin D supplement, which helps with seasonal affective disorder, which I don’t think I have, but it sounds scary and I don’t want it.
- I learned it’s important to always stabilize my blood sugar, so I should eat broccoli and blueberries, and eat them in combination with proteins in fish, chicken or turkey.
- Finally, it was suggested that I eat quinoa, a whole grain that is also a good source of B vitamins. (Pronounced: Keen-wa. Say it right, or they laugh at you, I’ve learned).
Now my list had 8 to-do’s from the top list, and 6 to-eats from the bottom list, but I also have a really smart biochemist friend, and I had asked him what supplements he takes every day. Here’s what he consumes:
- Mega doses of Omega 3 fish oil
- A high-dose, complex multi-vitamin
- A calcium complex supplement
- A CoQ10 pill for cellular energy
- An 81 milligram enteric-coated aspirin
- Cruciferous vegetables for cellular detoxification (broccoli, better steamed than raw) cauliflower, cabbage, or if I don’t like those vegetables, take broccoli powder or a sulphurophane supplement, helpful for reducing the risks of cancer and detoxification at the cellular level
- Fresh berries for antioxidants and to fight carcinogens
- Lots of fish and nuts, for my brain, heart, and prostate
- Plus, control my level of unrefined carbs, and always balancing them at the same time with fat and protein, like eating bread with olive oil or peanut butter.
Right then, I started feeling a little overwhelmed. If you are keeping track, I am now up to 23 suggestions on how to improve my life.
If you’ve ever gone through a self-improvement reading experience like this, maybe you found yourself getting a little stressed wondering how you were going to get all of these things done, (especially finding that sulphurophane supplement).
Tell me again where I’m going to find that time for savoring life’s joys? (#3 from List 1)
Here’s my point today: If you ask for advice in this world, you will find it, in books, articles, websites, from friends. And now from me.
Here are my 4 key pieces of advice concerning the 23 pieces of advice from above:
#1: Create routines and systems to repeat tasks that are most important. Be disciplined in following them. Every meal, brush and floss. Every morning, pop the pills. Every night, exercise. Whatever you want to accomplish, create structure and eliminate chaos on those goals that can be systematized.
#2: It’s all about prioritizing. What tasks really need to be done that will really impact your world significantly for the better? If you’re using my list of 23, focus on the ones that will help the most and eliminate the extraneous.
#3: Then, you have this little thing called your business demanding your attention, so this piece of advice applies to your business: Focus your effort on the big priorities that will move your business forward in dramatic fashion. I know some of you have heard me say this before, but face it: You will never have enough time to do everything that pops into your head and your current business to-do list won’t be accomplished by next Christmas. If you need increased sales and customer traffic, you must learn to identify those tools that will move the needle into double digit increases, and put on the back burner the less impactful steps that won’t cause your business to skyrocket.
#4: Finally, my last piece of advice: Go easy on yourself. At the end of today, cut yourself some slack. I’m told Rome wasn’t built in a day.
But starting tomorrow, go make friends with some cruciferous vegetables and a salmon.
Jon Schallert
Congratulations to our March 2014 Destination BootCamp Graduates
Congratulations to our March 2014 Destination BootCamp Graduates. This class of 22 was comprised of an incredibly diverse group of over-achieving business owners, with two larger Community Reinvention Program groups from Goshen County and Torrington, Wyoming and Forney, Texas (and two BootCamp Graduates back for another class).
If you’d like to be part of our next BootCamp in May, or if you’d like to learn how your community can participate in our 6-month Community Reinvention Program, feel free to call me, email me, or click here for more information.
