How to change your life
I had just gotten home from my rush hour commute through the 115 degree summer heat in Phoenix, Arizona. My car rolled across the the gravel in front of my rundown shack by the railroad tracks. I went in and turned on the ailing air conditioner and flipped on the TV to decompress from a soul-sucking day at a job that I hated.
I had no idea what to do for the rest of the day. I didn’t have any friends. I didn’t have any plans.
We live in a “now” culture. If it takes more than five seconds for a website to load, we won’t view it. We want to call our friends now, even if we’ll see them in 10 minutes. The “now” culture is one of convenience, and let’s face it, convenience can make our lives easier.
Unfortunately, by gaining convenience, we’ve lost some of our patience. Waiting has become a common enemy. We get irritated when the guy in front of us jokes with the cashier because it takes longer for us to buy milk. We want pills and surgery to lose weight instantly, rather than streamlining our diet and exercising. We want to have the best life possible right now, not tomorrow, and certainly not next year.
Today I’m very happy to feature Lori Deschene. Lori is the founder of the hugely popular blog, TinyBuddha.com, and she has just released a book called Tiny Buddha: Simple Wisdom for Life’s Hard Questions. I have read the book and can honestly say it’s one of the best books I have read this year – it’s insightful, personal and practical. I have two hard copies of the book to give away, but first I would like to share with you an interview I recently did with Lori:
1. What led you to write this book?
I run Tiny Buddha as a community blog, and I’ve published posts from more than 175 people over the last two years. The posts often explore similar themes—purpose, happiness, change, love, and uncertainty.
“To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end in life.” – Robert Louis Stevenson
It took me a long time to realize that I didn’t want to be a personal development coach. At first it seemed to be a perfect fit. I was obsessed with personal development as a topic, and I had a sincere desire to help people change their lives for the better. Over time, though, I realized that I didn’t have what it takes to be a coach – I didn’t have that drive and passion to help people achieve the goals they wanted to achieve (usually to lose weight or make more money). I had other goals in mind, but they weren’t the type of goals that people pay a coach to help them achieve. These were “character goals” – goals that are designed to help people become better individuals. So I gave up coaching and devoted myself to writing, hoping that my message would find a receptive audience.
A story of being pushed to the edge and coming back with a new purpose and a new life.
Sometimes life throws a monkey wrench into our plans, jolting us onto a new path we never would have taken before. This isn’t often easy, but it can open the door to a life of greater purpose and fulfillment than would ever have been the case otherwise.
My name is Rob Meadows and this is the story of my monkey wrench, and something new I’ve started to build with it, a new direction in my own life.
What makes some people successful and able to handle change creatively? Why do some people seem to have good relationships or always appear to be in the right place at the right time? Is there something special about them? Are people born with certain traits which enable them to navigate through difficulties with apparent ease? Or is it all down to luck?
In the 1970s, John Grinder, a professor at the University of California, and a student called Richard Bandler started to work together on a project to observe the behaviours of successful people. They were interested in why some people are so good at what they do. Together, they developed a way of observing, codifying and replicating the thought patterns and behaviours which lead to individuals experiencing high levels of success. They called the approach Neurolinguistic Programming, since it explores the relationships between how we think (neuro), how we communicate (linguistic) and our patterns of behaviour and emotion (programmes).
Do you ever feel as though you’re at wit’s end? Do you keep wishing for some kind of break? Are you hoping that your life may eventually turn around for the better? We have good news: no matter how bleak your life outlook may be, that is ultimately a matter of perspective. And the good thing about perspective: once you change it, reality often follows suit.
No, we don’t mean to say that you may suddenly become enlightened. This is not to encourage you to remain idle waiting for some kind of magical secret to unfold. You are not to rely on the whims of the universe and get caught up in delusions, not unless you fail to miss the point.
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