Breaking Out of the Boredom

Recently, I’ve been writing about how keeping a record of one’s thoughts through a journal can be very helpful down the road. I’ve also recently found a few thoughts in those journals about how bored I became when I retired and some of the smart things I did that helped me with that.

If you are retired, you probably know what I’m talking about and if you are totally busy, working hard, long hours plus taking care of your home and family responsibilities, you might not hit that boredom thing very often. It’s funny how so many of us think of work as a negative thing, when, really, it’s a blessing. I think many retired people would agree.

So, what do you do if retirement has you bored out of your mind or, if you are not even close to retirement, you find yourself bored way too much with what you are doing now? Retired or not, what I’ve found, and continue to find, is that there are many different ways to cope when boredom becomes part of our lives, but there is one approach that I think works best.

One of the best solutions to any kind of boredom is to get busy and stay busy with projects you are passionate about. You want to push yourself to do things that are not just fun but that challenge you. Specifically, you want to projects that are well thought out and that fit with what you like to do, what you are good at, and what you find exciting and fulfilling. This might be a big goal, maybe something you’ve always dreamed of doing, but haven’t tried yet out of fear.

A big goal can really wipe away boredom. The challenge of trying something big, even the fear that might come with it, can give you a real mental boost. I remember how fulfilled and not at all bored I was when I decided to have a new house built for me in Kauai. No, I wasn’t the guy who poured the cement or swung the hammer, but I decided on the floor plan that fit my personality and figured out things what things fit my lifestyle—like good indoor-outdoor living spaces. Then, just about every day, there were decisions to be made and new things to learn so I could make the best decisions, and that stuff that kept me really busy so that I was rarely, if ever, bored.

I also went back to work after retiring. I wasn’t working like I used to, but I did enough to keep me busy, starting new and exciting projects. Since I was retired, I could choose to work on things I had always thought about doing but hadn’t had the time for yet. So, I wrote another book, started this blog, and set new, bigger travel goals.

So, if you’re a bit (or a lot) bored, may I suggest you look for something challenging and new to keep you busy? If you don’t have anything in mind right now, that can be your first big goal—to come up with a list of things you want to try or do. If you are just totally busy and never bored, then don’t change anything and be thankful. But also know that circumstances can change, so keep any eye out for that awful boredom and keep busy with exciting new goals.

Journaling Gratefully

As promised in my last week’s blog, here are some great and smart affirmations from Sujatha Lalgudi’s very clever book called Gratitude Journal. This little book convinced me to write in my journal much, much more and be more aware of how life lifting it is to have a ton of gratitude for so many things in our lives. She encourages all of us to devote “a few minutes a day to develop thankfulness, mindfulness, and positivity.”

I’ve kept a journal for many, many years and I must admit it has been a big help in my life. Not only has it raised my spirits and mood, but it has been a very good motivator to do more and more with my life. I have seen it make a big difference in my relationship with friends and family and even with a few strangers!

The author also encourages readers to “invest 90 days of daily practice to cultivate happiness.” One of the other things she offers is a list of great affirmations to live by or to use to build your own list:

• My potential to succeed is infinite.
• I take pride in the progress I make each day.
• I am proud of myself and all that I have accomplished.
• The world is a better place for me in it.
• I go for goals with passion and pride.
• I am never a burden.
• I am smart.
• I am capable and valuable.
• I am at peace with myself.
• I am unique in my own wonderful way.
• I am focused, persistent, and will never quit.
• I am in charge of my own happiness.
• I have the power to create change.
• I take pride in my achievements.
• I have courage and confidence.
• I don’t need to be perfect.
• I love myself.
• I can make a difference.
• I am in charge of my life.
• I set goals and I reach them.
• I am proud of my own success.
• I am my own superhero.
• I love myself.
• I can do anything
• I can make a difference.
• I am in charge of my life.
• I am in charge of my own individuality.
• I am my own superhero.
• I am free to be myself.
• I trust myself.
• I live each day to the fullest.

These are most of Sujatha’s affirmations and I am sure they would be great and help any of us humans if we could live by this list and or even your own list. In addition to this, she lists many, many pages of items that we should pay attention to. These also are a good source of ideas for making your own list of things to pay more attention to or even to come up with more affirmations.

Sujatha also gives out her email address so that anyone that wants to can comment on her wonderful little book or share their stories. I hope you get this book and that you like her directions and ideas. I sure do!

The Power of Personal Questioning

Last week I talked about having a great passion and how, especially when you lose that passion, it can be really hard to move forward and chase what you want. The uncertainty and fear and can be such a big hurdle. So, as I promised in my last post, here are some things you can do to move forward.

First of all, doing some writing for yourself can be a huge boost in helping you reach your goals and improve your life. Ask yourself specific questions, like the ones below, then, don’t just think about them. Write down the thoughts that these questions bring up to make them more substantial and harder to ignore.

• Do I want to significantly raise my level of contentment and fulfillment?
• Do I want to become a better person?
• Do I want to be known as a person of accomplishment?
• Do I want to be in great physical and mental shape with ideal health my entire life?
• Do I want to live a very long, active life?
• Do I want to make a fortune—a million dollars, $10 million, or even $100 million? (Just think how much good you could do with that much money!)
• Do I want the increased choices and possibilities in my life that making my own fortune could give me?
• Do I want to leave the world a better place than I found it?
• Do I want to help others as I help myself?
• Do I want to travel and experience the world and its cultures?

Again, write down your honest responses to these self-searching questions. Develop some of your own “life questions” and answer those as well.

If it’s really about the missing passion in your life or because you are feeling unfulfilled, try answering these questions instead of, or in addition to, the ones above.

• What do you have a true passion for in your life?
• What part of your recent or past life—even during your childhood—really got you excited, to the point that you totally lost track of time when involved in it?
• Think about specific things you love and how they make you feel. Do you get excited about music, art, ballet, sports, outdoor adventures, writing, gatherings, social interactions, running your own small business, helping others…?
• What kind of breakthrough would you be ecstatic to have in your life right now? Would it be in the area of health, wealth, personal expression, spiritual development, or something else?
• In what would you love to excel?

Think about all that. You may find, after taking time to really go through all your interests, that you have many unfulfilled passions. Which ones do you get the most excited about?

After all this questioning, take some time to contemplate and think about it, then write down what you believe to be your true, unfulfilled passions.

If you are doing something you are passionate about, there are a few more questions you should ask.

1. Am I actually doing that special something that I have a great passion for?
2. If so, am I doing it for the right reasons?
3. What are those reasons?

Asking questions gives us the opportunity to really come to understand ourselves, what we are thinking, and maybe even what we want. But mostly, asking and writing our thoughts down make them more concrete and can jumpstart a plan to get more out of life, to find or chase a passion you may have been ignoring because you were afraid, uncertain, or just let life distract you.

The new year is just around the corner, so this is the perfect time to define what you want and start in on a plan to make that happen for you so you are living a fulfilling and passionate life in 2023.

Rallying for Passion and Against Fear

I’ve written about turning dreams into reality before and I do think there are lots of things you can do to really make those dreams come to pass in your life. It’s been said that “Lucky are those who have a passion for life, but blessed are those who have passion ALL their life.”

I don’t know about you, but I believe one of the most important keys to staying young, in nearly every way, is to flood my life with passion. For me, that comes from pursuing what I want out of life, really going after my dreams full force, keeping an eye on my priorities, and doing those things that I love to do with all the energy I can muster!

I set very specific and tough goals for myself, and I go after those goals like my life depends on it, because, you know, I really DO believe my life depends on it. When I write those goals down, I am much, much more likely to follow through and reach those goals. You see, I loathe the idea of living a life of insignificance. It’s like wasting the most precious resource in the entire world. A human life. My life!

If you don’t feel the same way, then ask yourself, “Why don’t I know what I want in life?”

That question is particularly bothersome if you once had a great passion for something and then you lost it somewhere along the way. Far too many people give up on life when that happens, fearful of the outcome if they try something else. But they’re losing out on so much more when they don’t try.

Here are 3 common fears that can slow us down or stop us from going after what we really want and dream about. Are one of these stopping you?

1. Fear striking out aggressively in a new direction because we don’t know what it will be like.

2. Fear of taking risks because risks include the possibility of failure.

3. Fear of the possibility, real or imagined, of losing what we have already.

When we give into these fears, we end up just sitting on our hands. We give up on having what we really want and totally miss out on having long-lasting fulfillment and contentment in our lives.

I’ve talked to many very, very successful people that freely admit they had an enormous fear of becoming a total failure, but they pushed themselves forward anyway and, most of the time, they were very successful, despite their great fears!

How did they do that? Well, everyone has their own specific methods, but next week, I’ll give you some ideas on how to push your fears aside and push yourself to go after the things you really want in life.

Daily Joy

Years ago, after successfully building my wealth, I retired so I could enjoy the “good life”, including traveling and having plenty of time to spend with family. That is the kind of life everybody would love to live, right? Well, it did not end up being what I thought it would be. I was shocked at how unhappy and depressed I could get. Sometimes I didn’t even want to get up in the morning. I just didn’t see any joy in my day.

This situation was a mystery to me at first. Why would leisure make me so unhappy? I researched my symptoms and tried various methods to improve my health and my mind. Some techniques I found worked, to an extent, but if I thought back to my earlier years when I had been working really hard to build my wealth, there was no comparison.

The thing was, when I worked long days fixing up homes or, later, negotiating huge real estate purchases, I was happy, regardless of all the toil and pressure of those times. I had goals and a bright future, and I was intensely passionate about what I was doing. It was while pondering the past that I realized, for all the great things I had accomplished, for all the wealth and love I had in my life, life was not worth waking up for without a purpose and a passion.

As it turns out, I enjoy life the most when I am helping others better their own lives and knowing that led me to a solution for what I was feeling. With so many years of experience and knowledge, and having already written books on succeeding financially, writing another book, one that would help people not just become wealthy, but would help them reach any goal they desired, was just a natural choice. Once I decided to write the book, my days came alive again.

It was a long, arduous road, but eventually I published How to Ignite Your Passion for Living in 2008. It wasn’t long after publication that I began to see and hear the stories of people whose lives were changed because of the words and techniques in my book. It turned out, however, that the book would be just the beginning of a new chapter in my life, one where helping people find their passion and better their lives became a focus for my life.

To this day, I continue to work towards spreading these ideas through whatever channels I find, including this blog. I continue to hope that, through these posts, I can further inspire and motivate people. And I always love to hear the stories of struggle and success from my readers, so if you have one or more to share, please do write to me.

My readers are my purpose and passion now, the driving force that gets me jumping out of bed in the morning, looking forward to all the new day has in store. I hope you have found or are looking for that something that brings joy into your life every day as well. Joy really is working towards something you truly believe in.

Of Repetition and Courage

In the foreword of my book, How to Ignite Your Passion for Living, I included a great quote from my friend and mentor Paul J. Meyer of Waco, Texas. He said, “Rather than read a thousand different books, find a few that are powerful and life-changing and read them many times. Wait between readings for the material to sift through your brain, then read the book again. With the repetition, you’ll remember more of the information and more of what you learn will really sink in.” Being taught this from my wonderful friend helped my life in so many areas that I couldn’t count them all, but one of the big things this practice has done for me is to boost my courage to do the things I want to do.

In Chapter One of my book, I explained that “it doesn’t matter how old you are—you can be a young buck or an old fart. However, sometimes the young may lack the courage to go for something BIG or they may doubt they have enough experience or knowledge or resources to make it happen. And those who are older sometimes fall into the thinking trap that it’s too late—that somehow they’ve run out of time.”.

In that same chapter, I also observed that a tragic thing can happen to your life as you’re on the way to your death. That thing that some call a midlife crisis can hit you hard. During this time you can begin to run out of steam, stagnate, lose confidence and trust in yourself, and even give up on life. Because of this, many people die inside long before they’re buried. I have to admit that most of these things started happening to me as well, although not until about the age of 70.

Make no mistake, even young folks can experience this! There are too many in their 30s and younger who quit on themselves and never reach their full potential. Others think they have all the time in the world and never quite grab a hold of their lives or find direction and true purpose. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Anyone can greatly improve their life and find the courage to rebuild their passion for living. I’ll talk about that next week.

One more thing. Are you as amazed as I am when so-called coincidences pop up? While writing this blog, another great friend, a basketball buddy (and the guy on our high school team that was key to our winning the finals game in the last 20 seconds of our tournament in Rome, Italy), Ed Beckcom called. And you know where he called me from? Waco, Texas, where Paul J Meyer is from! Wow. I do think that these things we call coincidences are really our brain waves traveling all over the globe to bring us the most unexpected connections. 

Stimulating Passion

Most every human being loves their passion. There are so many ways to go after and build such passions. Some of these come easily and automatically, such as when we were young and everything was new. Those new things made our passions rise. That first day of school, seeing old friends and new, could be a quick and huge hit on the passion button.

In my book How to Ignite Your Passion for Living, I make the point that, from my experience, passion can start to fade a bit as we age. But, thankfully, passion can be manufactured. All you need to do is put something together in an unusual, better, or at least new-to-you way.

One of the keys to manufacturing passion is to set difficult objectives and work towards them. I clearly remember when I was 27 years old, and I set a goal to make a net worth for myself of $1 MILLION by the time I hit age 30. What a huge turn on that was for me. It raised my passion level big time. I was one year late in hitting that goal, but having that huge and exciting goal really kept me and my passion going.

From about age 25, your brain produces less and less dopamine and serotonin, the hormones that help you feel good and fan the flames of passion. Although a child’s body is awash in these hormones, we need to work on stimulating our system to produce more of these hormones as we age. We can do this by eating the right foods, exercising, and, most importantly, setting the right goals that keep us going after them.

Renewing your passions can really show you what you and your brain can do. It can give you a ton of energy as well as raising the quality of your personal and business life.

One of my biggest passions is travelling. I’m talking about everything from huge international travel, like going around the world on my honeymoon, to just driving through a neighborhood that I’ve never visited. I’ve been to 94 countries and still feel my passion rising just planning a trip to a new place, even if it’s a small country or an old neighborhood.

Passion for living comes and goes. Our big challenge then is to figure out what our passion is, what turns our lights on and gets us excited. When we figure that out, we can do it more and more. And it’s always a good idea to write down our passions and the goals that keep them going so it will stick in your brain, pushing you to do it and to keep doing it.

The Power of Book Notes

When I read books, I almost always write notes on the blank pages. I jot down a quote that strikes me or I write my own thoughts that were stimulated by what the author wrote. This week, I’d like to share some of my notes from a couple of great books. I hope they strike and motivate you the way they did me.

In Patrice Jenkins PhD’s great little book What Will I Do ALL DAY?, I wrote down a number of thoughts. Here are a few:

1. Structure can be and should be a very important part of our lives and now that I’m retired, I must push myself for more structure.

2. Set more deadlines and make more commitments and goals and always write them down with a time deadline.

3. Set my alarm and schedule time for working out and stretching.

4. Make a big deal out of small things in my life.

5. Remind myself often that, now that I am retired, I have time to turn molehills into mountains.

6. Remember that it’s very important when retired to find work for yourself.

7. Make a list of new places, cities and countries to visit — at least 6 more countries to add to my 94 already visited.

8. Write down my intentions for each and every day.

9. Take time to make a list of those things I love to do and push myself to concentrate on those items.

And here are a few gems I scribbled down when reading the book Write it Down and Make It Happen by Henriette Anne Klauser.

1. Don’t forget that writing down my intentions works better than just speaking them.

2. Remind myself that I can’t have what I want most until I know what it is.

3. Writing is a good way to force my negative emotional reactions into words and not stomach churning.

4. I need to write down my intentions, my passions, my talents, then write down what actions I should, and can, take.

5. I need to take time to write down things that are not working for me in my life and let them go. Klauser ‘s suggested that you make that list then ceremoniously dispose of that paper, as in burn it or bury it.

Do these notes inspire you to make a few of your own now? Taking down notes as you read a book makes it a much more active and, ultimately, more productive read!

The Greatest High

When I was very young, I never got high. But now, at almost 77, I must admit I get high quite often. In fact, right now is one of those times. I’m high, real high – the captain just announced that we are about 33,000 feet high.

Ho ho… you might have thought I was talking about drugs, drugs that stimulate the brain. Nope. I’ve never done drugs. I really do love being at 30,000 feet or more, as long as I’m on an airplane. Oh yes, I love to travel, and flying not only gets me 30,000 plus feet high, it also lifts my brain as I see and experience new things.

The brain responds tremendously to novelty such as new sights and sounds. It certainly gives me a high. Yes, I know that many people are afraid to fly, especially when they see things like a jet losing an engine over Denver. But wow… look at the odds of dying on a commercial flight. Research shows there is a 1 in 29 million chance that you will die that way.

I love to visit foreign countries, not just because of the flight there, which I love, but because of the uniqueness, the novelty of new countries and new people, and the amazing variety of cultures. Sadly, those great things like foreign travel and being very social were suddenly taken away from us, but it isn’t permanent. Fortunately, it seems like we might be pulling ourselves out of this COVID mess. (And, yes, I did get my COVID vaccine!)

As I write this, we are thousands of feet above the Pacific Ocean, flying from Kauai to Seattle then on to Salt Lake City. And, yes, our months in Hawaii were warm and wonderful although it did rain a ton! But we still got in some tennis time and beach time.

I am a huge believer in staying active. There is so much evidence showing that if you keep moving you will, on average, have better health and a longer life. Pair activity with novel things to do and novel places to visit and you can lead a longer and healthier life while having tons of fun!

We are now making lots of plans for future trips and are very carefully increasing our social life. I hope the best for you as well as we get our lives back to normal. How novel everything will seem then!

Biden’s Hard Work

Last November I wrote my blog about meeting Joe Biden at a house of a friend of mine. I was so very impressed by how intelligent he was. He was also such a nice down to earth guy.

So, yes, I was very delighted that he won the election and is now our president. I’m confident that he will be great for our wonderful nation. And now, of course, I will be showing off the picture of the two of us that I put in my previous November 15th post. I’m sure he loves the picture and he’ll never forget me… ho ho ho.

But, yes, I will put the picture of Biden and I on my home office wall along with the many other famous people I’ve had by my side. And, yes, I still have the big sign above all those photographs that reads, “People Who Don’t Know Me”.

But all joking aside, this past week has brought to mind my deep appreciation for the country that I live in. I’ve traveled the world and visited more than 90 countries and even lived in the middle eastern country of Turkey for a time. I’ll never forget being awakened by gun fire and explosions near our apartment when I lived in Turkey. I ran to the balcony and looked out at hundreds of soldiers and their guns. We were right then living in the middle of a military revolution and a chaotic overthrow of the government. It was quite the experience.

What I have seen in Turkey and elsewhere has helped me realize how proud, pleased, free, and safe I have been living in this great country called America. I am quite confident that the next 4 years will make us an even better country and place to live.

I do have confidence that President Biden will be instrumental in bringing Americans closer together, regardless of our political differences, education, or wealth. I’ve been reading a bit about Joe’s background and it doesn’t surprise me that he has done so much in his life.

Biden is a very hard worker, so much so that in high school he was the star of the football team and led his team to a perfect undefeated season, making many, many touchdowns himself. If you want to be one of the best in almost any field, it takes lots and lots of hard work and time.

I know this from my own personal experiences, both in business and sports. When I was in high school, I set a goal to be a great basketball player and spent 4 to 5 hours a day practicing. My biggest specific goal was to help my small American high school in Ankara, Turkey win the big American basketball tournament in Rome, Italy. And, yes, we did win the tourney and I went on to get a basketball scholarship at Utah State University. That was the good news. The bad news was that I mostly sat on the bench there. Oh, well. I hit my goal of being on the team at least.

Joe Biden certainly knows and applies those ideas. He takes lots and lots of time and puts in a ton of hard work. He’s done it big time now as the President of the United State of America.

 

Next Page »