Leaders, How Do You Savor Your Sunday?

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As a leader, how do you savor your Sunday?

What are the ways you can be completely in the moment? And why is this important for how you live your life and lead in the coming week?

Savoring is a concept I learned about in the most popular course at Yale University. It’s about happiness, and it’s called “The Science of Well-Being.” Taught by psychologist Dr. Laurie Santos, the free course is available on Coursera.

When you savor something, you are in the moment, fully enjoying the experience.

You are not thinking about last week’s problems, or the coming week’s stuffed calendar, or all the tasks on your to-do list.

Instead, you are fully present. You are stepping outside an experience to fully appreciate it. You are noticing the sights, sounds, and smells of your surroundings. You are completely enjoying what you are doing or how you are simply being.

We live in a world that values doing, doing, doing. All the time.

How about simply BEING for a few minutes or hours? Not DOING anything.

How could simply “being” help you savor today? How could it help you find pleasure in the moment?

And when you return to a “doing” state, here are the savoring tips I learned:

1. Sharing the experience with another person

2. Thinking about how lucky you are to enjoy such an amazing moment

3. Keeping a souvenir or a photo of that activity

4. Making sure you stay in the present moment the entire time

5. Journaling about the experience and your reflections on it

When you feel fulfilled and savor Sunday as time off, a few things happen.

First, you truly enjoy life as it unfolds, which is the best gift of all. Life is a series of moments, and you’re there for all of them.

Second, you start your work week in a calmer and more grounded place, ready to lead people in a more inspirational way.

What experience will YOU savor today?

What Are You Learning This Fall?

 

Autumn is like a new year all its own. A relatively new school year is underway. That brings a fresh start.

Learning is an integral part of the season. And you don’t have to be an official student pursuing a degree to have a learning plan of your own. There are so many engaging and inexpensive ways to learn. Your local library, a local university extension program, or online classes are just a few options.

This week I listened to one of my favorite podcasts, Hello Monday with Jessi Hempel, on LinkedIn. The guest was Laurie Santos. She’s a host of her own podcast, The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos, and the professor for the most popular class at Yale: The Science of Well-Being.

You can take this class for free on Coursera, along with 4 million other people (including me) who are enrolled. Given all the mental health challenges that come with almost 3 years of a global pandemic, along with climate change, economic worries, and more, this course is a much-needed breath of fresh air.

What are you learning this fall?

 

Does Progress Make You Happy?

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What’s the secret to being happy?

A terrific post in Inc. this week by Josh Linkner explained why happiness is progress.

There’s something about moving toward your most important goals that’s more fulfilling than anything. Because life truly is about the journey, rather than the destination.

If you lead others, clearing the path for progress is one of the most important things you can do. Making measurable progress each day is what gives people a sense of accomplishment. Teresa Amabile covers it well in The Progress Principle.

How does progress make you happy?

Can You Change in an Instant?

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Is it possible to change in an instant?

Conventional wisdom says no. Change involves multiple steps. Change takes time. Change is hard.

Yet there is one thing you can change in a moment. What is it? Your mind.

You don’t need more than a moment to decide you will think in a different way. You will act in a different way. You will see the world in a different way.

Endlessly inspiring in this area is one of author Gretchen Rubin‘s “twelve commandments of happiness.”

Here it is . . .

Act the way you want to feel.”

Not feeling so good, physically, emotionally or spiritually? Start acting the way you’d rather feel.

If you want to feel happy, start acting that way. If you want to feel energetic, bring a bounce to your step. If you want to feel valued, start by appreciating someone else.

And if changing your life in an instant seems too far fetched, try these tips from Nicolas Cole for how you can improve your life the most in a single day.

His best advice?

“Be today who you want to be tomorrow.”

Who do you want to be tomorrow?

Just start acting as if you already are that person.

Just Say Yes

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This post is based on my inspiration at the April meeting of the Palos Verdes Chapter of National Charity League.

As parents, we spend a lot of time saying no. Right? Especially to our kids.

  • No, you can’t stay up all night.
  • No, you can’t miss school today because you didn’t finish your homework.
  • No, you can’t have friends over while I’m not home.

And we often say no to ourselves.

  • No, I can’t take time for myself.
  • No, I’d never be good at painting, dancing or other fill-in-the-blank activity
  • No, I can’t pursue my dreams while my kids are growing up.

But what if we paused and asked ourselves if there was a way we could say yes?

In my daughter’s freshman year in high school, she texted me the day before Halloween.

“Mom,” it read, “can I dye my hair for Halloween?”

Whaaaat? Visions of neon colors flashed across my eyes. And not in a good way.

I took a deep breath. And another. Then I responded. “What color?” I asked. The reply? “Brown. And it’s semi-permanent, so it’ll rinse out.”

What a relief. This was something I could say “yes” to. In these high school years, I’ve looked for times I can say yes. Then when I have to say no, my daughter won’t be able to say, “but you always say no.” Or, “you never say yes.”

In fact, “You never say yes to anything” was the catalyst for BIG changes in the life of Shonda Rhimes. She’s the creator, writer and producer of hit TV shows including Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal.

One Thanksgiving, as Shonda mentioned yet another invitation she’d declined, her sister muttered, “you never say yes to anything.”

Thus began Shonda’s “year of yes.” She decided for a whole year, she would say yes to anything that scared her.

Some of her invitations aren’t things that would happen to us – or at least not to me. Being the commencement speaker at Dartmouth. Going on the Jimmy Kimmel show. Joining Oprah for Super Soul Sunday. Losing 127 pounds!

But others very much speak to our lives. She decided whenever one of her 3 daughters asked her to play, she’d stop whatever she was doing and she would play.

She says after 15 minutes, your kids have had enough playtime, so you can go back to what you were doing. When she had this epiphany, she was in a ball gown about to head to a TV awards show. But she sat down, and she played.

Her TED talk explores the life-changing experience of play in her “year of yes.”

Here’s what she wrote about happiness.

“We believe happiness lies in following the same list of rules. In being more like everyone else. That? Is wrong. There is no list of rules. There is one rule. The rule is: there are no rules.

Happiness comes from living as you need to, as you want to. As your inner voice tells you to. Happiness comes from being who you actually are instead of who you think you are supposed to be. Don’t apologize. Don’t explain. Don’t ever feel less than.

When you feel the need to apologize or explain who you are, it means the voice in your head is telling you the wrong story. Wipe the slate clean. And rewrite it.

No fairy tales. Be your own narrator. And go for a happy ending. One foot in front of the other. You will make it.”

In closing, what will you say yes to today?