Break Through From Being Stuck

At times we feel we are stuck on a treadmill on our life journey. We are moving and becoming exhausted but as we look around we are in the same spot. Living More Than OK the idea behind my book by the same name encourages a life journey that spirals up into abundant living. The idea is about continually growing and moving higher up to new goals and purposes. That is not happening when we are stuck and exhausted.

I came across a book from Simple Truths that speaks to these times of being stuck. The book is Getting Unstuck: 10 Simple Secrets to Embracing Change and Celebrating Your Life. The authors, George and Sedena Cappannelli, are founders of Age Nation. They have a rich history in media and are motivational experts in the area of helping organizations and individuals deal with change.

Change – we all face it. Each day is a new change with new directions, challenges and opportunities. Just think of their subtitle though. How many of us are good with embracing change? We are more comfortable initially being stuck in the comfort of the knowable. Many wind up hiding in their comfort zone closet and miss out on the celebration that is waiting for them if they would step out and try new possibilities.

The book looks at 10 secrets they offer to help us break out of the comfort of the recliner of the comfortable knowns or the fear of the closet of the mundane routines we settle for in our lives. I will make a few comments on a few of the secrets that stood out to me the most. For the other 7 you will need to buy the book or request it at your local library.

1. Rules are made for the guidance of wise men and women.
2. Begin at the beginning.
3. Learn to say yes.
4. Build a strong and stable base.
5. Celebrate excellence.
6. Eliminate limiting beliefs and negative self-talk.
7. Connect, understand, and accept.
8. Worship spontaneity.
9. Take (almost) nothing seriously.
10. Become an instrument of grace and gratitude.

Secret 3 “Learn to say Yes” stood out to me first of all. Concerning this they say ”Where resistance , tension, and stubbornness are often the by-products of no; yes can become our gateway to openness, greater joy, and a rewarding and adventurous life.” (p,33). Often the no’s we say to ourselves keep us stuck as we fail to step out in faith to new opportunities and possibilities. How much do we miss out in life whether it is in meeting new people, helping someone, or a new opportunity for success when we are locked in fear with our saying no instead of saying yes.

With secret 6 which is “Eliminate limiting beliefs and negative self-talk.”, I believe it fits well with secret 3. Our negative thinking and false beliefs are often behind many of the no’s we tell ourselves. The negativity of our thinking keeps us stuck in our doubts about moving in an upward spiral to abundant living. They encourage in the book to be reflective and meditative in our thinking so we can mindfully be aware of the negativity filling our thought life. In doing so we can change the negative statements to positive thoughts that move us forward in vibrant living opportunities.

Secret 10 was another secret that stood out to me. That secret is stated as “Become an instrument of grace and gratitude.” One thought in this section is ”Your life is a gift, even with it’s most daunting challenges, difficult people, circumstances and significant changes.” (p. 100). When we are in stuck mode we are whining and complaining too much to view our lives as a gift of grace. We need to take time not just at this Thanksgiving season but throughout the year. Being grateful, helps to pull us out of being stuck to be open to new things to be thankful for. Here they mention one of my many favorite quotes, “If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough. “ (Meister Eckhart)

There was a wealth of information to reflect upon with the other 7 secrets. I focused on 3 in hopes to whet your mental appetite to seek out the book for yourselves. If you find yourself stuck in your life remember your Creator made you for more than sitting is a comfortable recliner or exhaustingly treading in one spot. Make this a time for a break through and become unstuck.

Reflection:

Think through a time of being stuck in your life. What did you learn about yourself and how did your break free? What did you think about the 3 secrets I presented from the book?

Turn Your Exercise Into A Party

We have been using Walk at Home dvds as part of our home exercise regimen for over 10 years. A couple of weeks ago we bought a new Leslie Sansone Walk at Home dvd to add to our exercise collection. It was the “Walk to the Hits Party Songs” dvd. One aspect of the Walk at Home program I like is that there are a number of dvds available so by having several you don’t get bored doing the same workout over and over again.

The next evening my wife, daughter and I exercised to that dvd. Leslie was her usual effervescent self and an energetic team of walkers doing the workout with her helped create a fun atmosphere in the family room where we exercise. Her programs always have upbeat music that you want to move to. The music here was a variety of tunes including songs by MC Hammer, Lionel Ritchie and The Go Gos. The party atmosphere of the program made the time fly by but the pace made us realize we had worked out.

Leslie gears her programs around basic core moves yet to mix it up incorporates new moves in each program. In this “Walk to the Hits Party Songs”, she incorporated High-intensity interval training (HIIT). HITT is a form of interval training, an exercise strategy where you alternate short periods of intense anaerobic exercise with less-intense recovery periods.
Even on nights when we do not feel like exercising the Leslie Sansone Walk at Home programs are so lively and enjoyable you wind up feeling energized and glad you took the time to walk the 3 or 4 miles. Since most of her programs incorporate a team of walkers with her and Leslie is so personable it is easy to feel like exercise time is party time. The energetic feeling that exercise provides is why I discuss her Walk at Home series in my book, Living More Than OK, ( click here to see about purchasing Living More Than OK) in the chapter on Natural Highs.

If you have never used any of Leslie Sansone’s Walk at Home programs in your workout exercise regimen I encourage you to consider it. We as a family have appreciated her programs for the past 10 years. Check out her website -- www.walkathome.com At her website you can order there or find local stores that sell her Walk at Home dvds. She also has success stories of people who have used her programs to better their health.

In Living More Than OK in our life journey, good health is important. You need to be involved in some form of exercise you to keep yourself in the best health possible. Good health pays off in giving you the energy to spiral up to abundant living.

Reflection: What is your favorite type of exercise? (Exercising the index finger with the tv remote does not count) How do you feel exercise helps with the quality of your living?

Four Tips for Living a More Than OK Life

I have been asked many times what is “Living More Than OK” about? What am I trying to get across to people? When I think those questions, the first thought that comes to my mind is a thought from Dr. Martin Seligman’s book, “Flourishing”, ‘happiness, flow, meaning, love, gratitude, accomplishment, growth, better relationships – constitute human flourishing. Learning you can have more of these things in life is life changing.” That is the basis of Dr. Seligman’s book considering the importance of positive psychology principles for daily living. His Dr. Seligman’s thoughts relate well with the message I am trying to have people think about in their own lives.

1. Wake Up and Live

I am trying to wake up people from their reality TV slumber and remind them that we all are created for more than simply existing. That we can move beyond boring ok-ness to living more than ok... spiraling up to abundant living. Abundant living is similar to Seligman’s thoughts on flourishing living. Throughout my years of observing life. I have observed too many live in a passive survival mode. That is what TV tries to capitalize on. As people come home from working a hard day they become hooked staring at a large screen in the living room giving them entertainment. In reading time management articles over the past couple of years, I have noticed the trend being stated that more people waste time on the Internet that watching TV. Still both use the same passive watching of a screen. It is just that with computers and iPads the screens have become smaller.

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2. Fighting Okness

What I am encouraging is a move from passivity to a continual growth process in the individual life journey. It is the plateaus of ok-ness that bring on boredom. This stagnates our life, and sad to say a person can become comfortably bored living years of existence in the cycle of work, TV and beer until retirement, then it narrows down to TV and beer. Then looking back with a life of regret over what they wish they would have done in life. Again I am hard on TV, as over the years I have seen the dedication to what is called reality TV, which is not really reality. The whole concept comes across to me sad in seeing millions of people voyeuristically, wasting time observing other people living their lives rather than actively living their own lives.

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3. How to Think Versus Daydream

In my book I look at various aspects of positive psychology such as happiness, thankfulness, personal growth, meaning and resilience. I cover these by discussing the foundation of these with critical and creative thinking. I promote taking time to think over personal dreams and life purpose instead of daydreaming. I emphasize, being more active in life is important by considering adding natural high activities and taking risks on new activities in one’s life. There is no effort in my book to prioritize the various topics, as I believe we are each uniquely created with various personal interests and strengths. As I state in the forward of my book I am trying to wet the appetites of the readers to grow deeper in the topics they find more relevant to their life journey.

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4. Read

Other than the theme of continual individual growth there is a unique theme I emphasize in the book. That is my essay on being a bookhead. Granted, I am an avid reader, so I promote reading from a personal interest standpoint. But more so as I do research on reading, I believe that reading is important in helping the individual move from being passive to active in their living. Reading might be construed as a passive activity, but it is reading that actively engages the mind creatively and analytically to make choices for personal growth. I am presently continuing practical research on reading and that will be the main topic of the next “Living More Than OK” book I do.

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So if you feel like you are tired of being stuck on a boring plateau of ok-ness order a copy of my book and start actively “Living More Than OK”.
You can order it online at these merchants:
AuthorHouse

Barnes and Noble

Amazon

You can also order it through your local bookseller as well.
Keep spiraling upwards in your life!

Reflection: Do you feel stuck in a boring plateau in your life? Brainstorm ways you can break out of the rut to be more active.

Reflections On The Past Of Living More Than OK

This week I am doing personal reflections on the beginning inspirations of my blog, which turned into my book. My hope is that it will give you a deeper feeling for where I am coming from in emphasizing continual self-improvement which that I call, “Living More Than OK”.

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How It Started

When I think back to the year 2009, I am still thankful for having the privilege to take the course on Positive Psychology with lectures by Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar. That opened my mind in a deep manner about the wellness model within psychology. His encouragement at the end of the course was to seek ways to promote positive psychology concepts. It was after that when I began to think about starting my blog. Of course negative self-talk filled my mind with -- who would bother to read anything I wrote. Still by reframing my thoughts, I settled on if doing it, even if it helps only a few people live a better life. Writing the blog I felt was worth the effort.

The Role of Boredom

At first thought in 2009, the word boredom came to my mind as I thought through how I viewed how many people live their lives. Then discussions with my College students about how boredom negatively affected their studies and personal lives further intrigued my thinking for the need to encourage positive psychology principles. All of this moved me to read research articles on the subject. It made sense that a life of boredom increases negative effects in daily life. A tragic example of this was seen in the Summer of 2013 in Oklahoma as three teens murdered a college age baseball player as he was jogging. Reports stated the teens were bored and simply killed him for some excitement.

Of course that is an extreme case for most people, the boredom of life means wasting their life away. Too many live below their potential, which I have observed in many college students by their own admission in discussions. I have seen the same in work settings over the years. That is why I stated back in 2009, just OK living is going through the motions with no purpose or meaning. I don’t see it as a way the best way of living.

We were created for a better life than just surviving.

The words of Jesus that inspired my study came from “The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life and that they may have it more abundantly." (John 10:10). This is more the way I think we should be living life. Abundant living is living life to the full.

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What is the goal of life?

Boredom steals from our living and destroys and in some cases sadly, even kills. Abundant living and practical ways to live to our full God given potential is what I have always tried to explore ins this blog and hope to continue to do in the future.

The first questions I posed back in 2009 still hold true for me today: How can we continually move beyond boredom to living a joyful and abundant life? A continual growth mindset of “Living More Than OK” realizes that as we grow beyond what is ok in our life we plateau to a new level of ok-ness. So, the goal of abundant living is to not settle on the plateaus, but to keep growing to new levels of “Living More Than OK”. That is what I have been trying to get across in this blog over the years.

Reflection:
How does boredom in life negatively affect you? What are ways you have learned to keep your life moving to new levels of living more than ok?

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Moving Beyond Boredom to a Life of Joy

Welcome to the first blog of Living More Than OK. About three years ago I began reading up on the issue of boredom and life. This resulted from an encounter I had with a student in my office for Career Counseling, who happened to be struggling with his classes. In the discussion of what was the main problem other than uncertainty on a career focus, he mentioned that he was easily bored with his classes, especially the liberal arts basic courses. Boredom would overtake him and he would start skipping class. Over the next couple years, I informally kept track of students who brought up boredom as a negative effect on their education and life. Within one year at least 14 students brought up the issue of boredom as a major factor in their difficulty with college. As I read literature on boredom, it affirmed what I was seeing in some of the students, that boredom can negatively affect students’ progress.


Although this hit me at that point in time to encourage researching the issue of boredom, I had been working with college students for about 8 years and the word boredom would come up time to time. Personally, I had a hard time relating to where my students came from as I had never been that bored in education. I always had and still do a love for learning. As I looked at my other areas of life boredom really did not seem to bother me. This will be an issue for another blog! Yet books and articles I’ve read show boredom is a problem for many people.


One quote that struck me about boredom is from Lars Svendsen, a Philosophy professor in Norway. In his book A Philosophy of Boredom he states – “Boredom is inhuman as it robs human life of meaning, or possibly it is an expression of the fact that such a meaning is absent.” In my work with college students I always emphasize there is so much potential in life for their personal fulfillment and doing great things. Are we robbing ourselves from all that life can offer by living boring lives of just ok? How can we reach for more potential in our lives and live more that OK?


Just the word ok is intriguing to me. In naming the blog I thought how I often respond “OK” when I am asked how I am doing. But isn’t living just ok beneath our potential? Isn’t OK living kind of boring? Living in boredom is living in a cloudy maze similar to a depressive fog. Just OK living is going through the motions with no purpose or meaning. I don’t see it as a way of being, as we were created to be. We were created for a better life. The statement of Jesus comes to mind, “The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life and that they may have it more abundantly." (John 10:10). This is more the way I think we should be living life. Abundant living is living life to the fullest. Boredom steals from our living and destroys and in some cases sadly, even kills. Abundant living and practical ways to live to our fullest God given potential is what I wish to explore is this blog. How can we move beyond boredom to living a joyful and abundant life? Hope you enjoy the journey.