1. Treating every day as though it’s “just another day.”
A good life always begins now, when you stop waiting for a better one. Yet so many people wait all day for 5pm, all week for Friday, all year for the holidays, all their lives for happiness. Don’t be one of them. Don’t wait until your life is almost over to realize how good it has been, or just how much potential you’ve had waiting for you every single day.
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Yet today, just like the majority of us, you are distracted by so many others things. You give your time to lots of meaningless time-wasters. You take your important relationships for granted. You get to work skeptically with inner resistance. And you let everyday stress get the best of you…
Why?
Because you’re human, and human beings are imperfect creatures. We get overwhelmed and caught up in our own heads, and sometimes we don’t know our lives to be any better than the few things that aren’t going our way. We scrutinize and dramatize the insignificant, and then we sit back scratching our heads in bewilderment of how blah life feels. And as we continue to dwell on these things, we try to distract ourselves to numb the tension we feel. But by doing so, we also continue to distract ourselves from what matters most in life.
So today, let’s discuss three super-common daily habits Angel and I have seen distracting hundreds of our course students and conference attendees over the past 15 years — some default patterns far too many of us engage in on a daily basis, draining us of our true potential…
1. Treating every day as though it’s “just another day.”
A good life always begins now, when you stop waiting for a better one. Yet so many people wait all day for 5pm, all week for Friday, all year for the holidays, all their lives for happiness. Don’t be one of them. Don’t wait until your life is almost over to realize how good it has been, or just how much potential you’ve had waiting for you every single day.
Over the couple decades, Angel and I have personally learned to pay more attention to the beauty and practicality of living a simpler and more intentional life. A life uncluttered by most of the meaningless drama, distraction, and busyness people fill their lives with, leaving us with space for what’s truly meaningful. A life that isn’t constant rushing, worrying and stress, but instead contemplation, creation, and connection with the people, projects, and work that matters most to us. By redefining our priorities, and building healthy habits to back them up, we’ve literally been able to change our lives.
If you’ve been feeling overwhelmed and stressed out a lot lately, I highly recommend you rethink how you’re spending your time, and replace the meaningless with the meaningful.
Start by being honest about the distraction and busyness in your life…
How often do you engage in the exchange of valueless gossip?
How often are you thinking about other things when someone is talking to you?
Do you check social media apps on your phone when you’re working, or when you’re spending time with loved ones?
Do you send text messages while driving?
The biggest cost of filling your life with needless distraction and busyness (assuming you don’t crash from the texting and driving), is a gradual long-term decline of your effectiveness and happiness. When you get in the habit of persistently dividing your attention, you’re partially engaged in every activity, but rarely focused on any one. And this dizzying lack of focus eventually trips you up and brings you down.
https://www.marcandangel.com/2023/08/11/4-little-things-that-will-matter-a-lot-more-to-you-in-40-years/
