5 Concepts to Remind Yourself on the Daily

Maxims like these are sweet cheat codes for accessing inner truth, resetting boundaries, and tending to your serenity. Here’s five golden one-liners to sock away for a rainy day.

“No” can be a complete sentence.

Saying “Yes” to something that is not right for you is a double-whammy because it requires you to say “No” to something that is. We are given a limited amount of time and energy to endeavor on meaningful work and connection. Every wrong-headed “Yes” forces a downstream “No.”

Saying “No” is a sacred superpower. It need not be packaged with explanations and qualifications. Some circumstances might require soft couching, but “No” can also be a complete sentence.

The opposite of suffering is not happiness, it’s gratitude.

When we’re happy, we’re often on the far end of the pendulum swing of our moods, far from the darkness of our periods of suffering. In this way happiness can be a sort of distraction from our suffering — often a well-earned, bountiful balm.

Gratitude is the kryptonite of suffering because true gratitude can enfold suffering in its warm embrace, where happiness cannot. Finding gratitude in even the darkest moments brings a crack of light, and a boost of power and learning.

A healthy body is the secret X-factor to creating abundance.

In any endeavor, for any project, by any means available, a healthy body is the most underrated factor in producing results. A strong, vibrant body begets a dignified state of mind and a spacious emotional landscape. Dignity and spaciousness turn up the levels of everything good and positive in mindset and poise.

When in doubt, tend to the body.

All advances, personal or social, are hatched in utopian thinking.

Whether in your individual life or on a collective scale, all major advances and progress are dreamed up and/or designed in some form of utopian thinking or writing. Envisioning and dreaming up bold and beautiful scenarios has a far better chance of manifesting the next great thing in our lives than any other activity. Certainly far better than harping on past mistakes or bemoaning the status quo.

Prize dreaming over lamenting.

Trust your gut instinct, except when emotions are intense.

Life moves fast. Decisions big and small are made in one of two ways: by the gut, or by deliberation. The more moves we can make by our gut instinct, the more time we have to take the slow cook route on big decisions that warrant it. Learn to trust your gut more with this simple training:

Whenever you have a gut instinct, good or bad, first, rate the intensity of the emotion behind it from 1 to 10. Lower wins. A higher intensity emotion equates to reactivity which destroys the integrity of the instinct.