- Think deeply. Think often.
- Keep exploring; always be curious.
- Look to the past to build a better tomorrow.
- Use your passion for learning to add value to your own and others’ lives.
- Share your visions of a better future.
- Appreciate and refine your gift for understanding others’ thoughts and feelings.
- Always have at least three options in mind so you can adapt if circumstances change.
- Bring intensity and effort to the most important areas of your life.
- Create fair systems to establish and build trust.
- Stop, listen, and assess before taking action.
Tag / strength
How much is enough?
I asked myself this question a few days ago and elaborated on it in my journal. Specifically, I was asking myself, “How much money do I need to make to feel like I am making enough?”
Honestly, making more money right now would not bring me any more happiness. It’s not money that my conscience is crying out to gain: it is meaning, purpose, the ability to use my God-given talents and strengths to serve and help other people.
The income I make now is actually more than enough to satisfy my needs at this moment. So why am I not doing something that fills my cup?
Have you ever asked yourself what enough is? If you made $40,000 a year, could you live on that if it meant you were doing something you cared about so much and so thoroughly enjoyed you couldn’t dream of doing anything else?
My answer is yes. Yours may be different. At a certain point, making more money is just making more money. Studies tend to cap the increase in happiness that comes from money at about $75,000.
So what goal, idea, or passion is the quest for more money preventing you from pursuing?
Are you, perhaps, an artist who wants to paint? A musician who wants to play and teach? Or are you, like me, a teacher who simply wants to teach?
Ask yourself this question: could you, honestly, make a living knowing the starting or average income that job in your head receives? Could you survive, or even thrive, if it meant you were doing what you felt passionately called to do?
The irony is most of the time when you quit pursuing money and start pursuing passion in the service of others, more money than you imagined comes into your life.
How much is enough? Could you make it doing what you love?
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What makes you uncomfortable?
Resiliency is a skill that can be developed through practice. The first step is choosing to practice.
What makes you uncomfortable? The answer to that question will help determine where to start.
I hate asking people to make special accommodations for me: I always feel I am inconveniencing the other person (I rarely am), or that I am being a very annoying customer (if they think so, that’s their choice). So when my wife and I started to drastically reduce our waste production, I was uncomfortable with some of the suggestions she made.
A story…
My favorite example took place at our local Mexican restaurant: they have delicious salsa that we would buy in large tubs to take home and use during the week. These tubs were made of styrofoam and had plastic lids. My wife suggested that I take one of our many empty glass jars and ask for salsa to be placed inside. I was so reluctant, so uncomfortably scared to simply ask. It felt dangerous, even though the worst thing that could happen was to receive no as an answer. No danger at all, but my mind made it feel dangerous.
After numerous arguments (I was scared, remember?), I grudgingly went to the restaurant and made the request. The host looked at me curiously, but he acquiesced and placed the salsa in our jar. He even went a step further and informed me that there were no preservatives in the salsa; it would only keep for a week or so. A wave of relief washed over me.
But wait!
The next week, when I went back for more salsa, there was a sign on the front counter.
“$2.99 jars of salsa to go. Bring the jar back for a $0.99 refill.”
The host, who was also the manager, bought a stock of small glass jars and decided to sell them. He was actively encouraging people to reuse the jars while also proactively choosing to reduce the waste his restaurant produced.
By choosing (i.e. being forced by my incredible wife) to do something that made me uncomfortable, my wife and I achieved one of our small waste reduction goals. But the most inspiring thing was the change it created in someone else.
Seek out discomfort in all areas of your life. It makes you stronger mentally. Discomfort in the gym makes you stronger physically.
Other people avoid discomfort, which means you will be doing things others won’t. The intersection of discomfort and action creates change the world desperately needs.
Change makes things better. Seeking out discomfort makes things better.
What makes you uncomfortable?
Go do that.
Proactivity and resilience go hand in hand
Resilience is the ability to rebound from challenges, setbacks, and crises. When something happens, a resilient person is seemingly less affected by the event than a non-resilient person (not true).
Is someone born resilient? Doubtful.
Resiliency is a skill; it can be practiced and improved. It can be practiced by consciously choosing how to respond to a challenge, setback, or crisis. The effects of the event may indeed be negative: they might be seriously damaging to mind, body, or spirit. But that most fundamental human right, that of proactivity and the ability to choose, cannot be taken away by a negative event.
Resiliency, therefore, is practicing proactive responses in the face of negative events. It can mitigate the long-term effects of a difficult situation.
Is it easy? Of course not.
Is it necessary? More than ever. It will make you stronger.
Choose how you respond; become more resilient.
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