Six Hard-Learned Starting Principles
Six Hard-Learned Starting Principles
And Six Journaling Prompts to Effectively Absorb Them
Happiness ≠ happy moments - unhappy moments. Happiness is a way of seeing one’s whole life as having meaning and worth.
Prompt: In what way could I alter the focus of how I see my life, my day, my dreams to approach this definition of happiness?
Some of the richest, most resilient places in the natural world are where the habitat straddles two domains, like a field at the edge of a forest. The same goes for places of thought, where two domains intersect, like spirituality and neuroscience, music and technology.
Prompt: In the area of my pursuit, what are some riches hidden at surprising intersections?
Success is not a destination we arrive at; it’s a way of being characterized by a felt sense of liberation to pursue with ongoing grit the activities that feel meaningful.
Prompt: In what ways, in what moments, at what period of life, have I been successful beyond my wildest dreams by this definition?
Being a continuous learner has become a cliché, but make no mistake: to create truly resonant, powerful work, we must be inhabited by a felt sense of awe in our daily lives. That awe most often results from digging into ideas and domains about which we don’t have many answers.
Prompt: How do I generate a sustainable system of awe procurement in my life?
To make that resonant work, the sacred thing we’re uniquely called to make, we must certainly rub up against our fears. The fears are the clearest signal that we’re on the right path.
Prompt: What fears have I experienced recently that are the rightful signals of my approaching my unique calling?
The challenges that keep us stuck and lost are rarely solved by quick fixes generated by knee-jerk reactions. The most powerful thing we can do for our “stuckness” and “lostness” is to accept their complexity and messiness.
Prompt: Is there some problem situation for which I’ve defaulted to quick and knee-jerk conclusions, and in what way does doing so make me complicit in creating the problem condition I say I want to solve?
Photo by Dariusz Sankowski on Unsplash