Personal Development Blog For Living Your Full Potential

By Leo Babauta We’re entering the last month of the year, and it can be a crazy, shopping-filled, party spree of a month for many people. Or it can be a simpler, more mindful period of closing out the year and getting ready for the coming year. I’d like to invite you to a monthlong process that I’m calling Sacred Bow: An Intentional Way to Close Out the Year & Start the New Year. What will this process be? Here’s how I envision Sacred Bow: Review : Spend the first week reviewing your year so far, noting your accomplishments and big events, taking notes on what you’ve learned and what you’ve struggled with, seeing where you’ve dropped the ball and where you could grow. Let Go : Reflect on what you’d like to let go of moving forward, what you’ve been holding onto that’s not serving you. This is a releasing of baggage and struggles. Spend a few days practicing letting go, so that we can be clear for the new year. Set Intentions for the Next Year : What loving and purposeful in...

Here's What They Learned From Them Building a successful organization requires interpersonal skills as much as knowledge of finance or marketing strategies. Perhaps the most important tool in the relational toolbox is the tenacity to have tough talks that lead to the sort of necessary change that makes growth possible. Here, three individuals relate their most difficult conversations, revealing insights and advice applicable on a fairly wide scale. Their problems are likely to be yours at some point, if you are leading people. Calling out a trusted team member Addressing an individual’s poor decision making is never easy, especially if that person is a valuable part of the team and someone you want to continue working with long-term. The solution, says Shyam Krishna, founder of SKI Charities , is to empower that individual with more ownership over their role and the future of the organization as a whole. SKI Charities supports local entrepreneurs in developing countries by pr...

Continue reading How to Have a Civil Conversation on a Tough Subject at Michael Hyatt.

3 Things to Remember When Things Go Wrong Former BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward could have immediately and swiftly announced that the explosion of the British oil giant’s rig, Deepwater Horizon, had led to an environmental disaster that dumped 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico in April 2010. But he didn’t. Over a 10-day period, Hayward would go from downplaying the explosion as a “relatively tiny” situation to finally admitting that it was a “catastrophe.” Digging deeper Then Hayward dug himself a deeper hole a month later when, during a statement of sympathy for communities affected by the oil spill, he declared, “I’d like my life back.” His handling of the bad news didn’t go down well with anyone, especially then-U.S. President Barack Obama, who declared that Hayward “wouldn’t be working for me after any of those statements.” Nor did BP’s board of directors approve. By June 2010, Hayward was sent packing. How bad could it be? Certainly most of us will not h...

Set your life on fire. Seek those who fan your flames. ~Rumi By Leo Babauta Goals, like any tool, can be used to bludgeon ourselves over the head with shame and guilt, or can be used with intention, as a way to consciously deep our practice in life. I’ve been known to rail against having goals from time to time, to espouse goal-less living … but the truth is, goals can be used to guide us if they’re used intentionally. Goals are not the answer to everything, but neither are they evil. They’re simply tools. Imagine that you wanted to sail to a certain port (your career goal) … there are two ways that could go, depending on how you work with that goal. The Usual Way of Working With Goals The first way to work with sailing to a certain port is the traditional goal-setting way: You fix your sights on that port (the goal) and map a route to get there. But things don’t go as planned (maybe you didn’t work hard enough, got distracted, or other things came up) and now you feel d...

It’s easy to assume that the benefits of gratitude are primarily external. But the latest research reveals that thankfulness offers major payoffs on our side of the equation, too. Discover the advantages of gratitude—and specific practices to harness them—in this week’s episode.

“A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.” ― Henry David Thoreau, Walden By Leo Babauta Today, millions of people will be shopping, and the gift-shopping spree that is the holiday season will continue for a good month. In addition to the shopping madness (where many people will be going deeper into debt in order to give others products they don’t really want) … there’s the craziness of holiday parties, traffic, travel, and general chaos and busyness. It’s enough to stress out most people. What would happen if we decided to become radicals, and simplified the holidays? What would happen if we bucked the consumerist traditions, and got down to the essentials? For some, the essentials are religious — the spirit of this season has nothing to do with shopping or all the crazy trappings of the holidays. For others, myself included, the essentials are spending time with loved ones. That’s all that matters, in my heart. Once we remember the ...

What George Washington Understood Thanksgiving did not become an official national holiday until 1941, but it had roots that extended back to the founding of the first American colonies. The Plymouth colonists in 1621 did indeed have a thanksgiving harvest celebration with local Indians, and apparently ate eel and venison (but maybe not turkey) as part of the festivities. The Puritans of New England routinely declared days of fasting or thanksgiving, and they had perfected the thanksgiving proclamation by the late 1600s. One is struck today by just how specific these proclamations were. Good news of any kind could precipitate a day of grateful prayers. Thanksgiving was not necessarily an annual event for them. It often followed a victorious battle or a bountiful harvest. Early American colonists assumed that all blessings came directly from the hand of God, and that it was right to recognize the source from whom those blessings came. Colonial American gratitude had a focus that som...

Podcast about a garbageman who ignored warnings to evacuate a fire, breaking protocol to check on elderly folks on his route—and a 93-year-old was so glad he did. The post Another Hero–When Garbageman Refuses to Flee Wildfires So He Can Check On Seniors Along His Route (Podcast) appeared first on Good News Network .

With social media making us feel more isolated, how can we expect colleagues to disconnect from the internet and connect with each other instead? The post Become a Leader at Work by Getting Colleagues to Disconnect From Tech and Connect to Each Other appeared first on Good News Network .

The Lesson: The decorated psychologist Steven Pinker outlined in his recent book, Enlightenment Now, a convincing case that the world is far better off than modern media would lead us to believe. In Africa, ‘homegrown philanthropy’ is rising from all parts of the local and national economies there, in countries like Kenya, Nigeria, and others. […] The post Africa’s ‘Homegrown Philanthropy’ is Rising, Creating Self-Sufficiency for a New Generation appeared first on Good News Network .

By Leo Babauta A couple months ago, one of my favorite cookbook authors/bloggers ( Jules Clancy of Stone Soup ) came to me and asked in her Australian accent, “G’day Leo, how would you like to collaborate on a free vegan cookbook? I promise it won’t have Fosters or vegemoit in it, mate!” OK, she didn’t say exactly that, but that’s how I imagine it would have gone if she’d said it in person and not over email. Either way, I said yes. Or more like, “Hell yes!” Jules went through all the trouble of collecting my best vegan recipes and articles, and then added a bunch of even better vegan recipes she’d created. Along with some great articles on eating a plant-based diet. Then designed it into a kick-ass cookbook. I’m thrilled to announce that the Eat More Plants! cookbook is now available for download. In ‘Eat More Plants!’ you’ll discover: 20 easy vegan recipes in 20-minutes or less A gradual approach to healthy eating The simple guide to plant-based ingredient substitutes Why...

Get It Right By Seeing Where You Go Wrong This morning I had a list of four sizable items to accomplish. I knew it was an ambitious plan, but I tackled the day with confidence. I was determined to be a single-minded machine of efficiency, slaying tasks with unparalleled gusto. I started early, but it didn’t matter. As I write, it’s mid-afternoon and not one item has been fully accomplished. This has happened before. What goes astray? I usually notice something interesting in what I’m doing and decide to delve deeper, hoping to enhance my understanding or perhaps uncover a new connection. When successful, impromptu rabbit-hole journeys make solutions creative and ideas original. Unfortunately, not every trip ends in a moment of eureka. Some are just dead ends. The same is true of most complex tasks. People imagine the simplest route of accomplishment when gauging time, but the actual process is rarely simple. Complications, inefficiencies, unexpected outcomes along the way and deto...

Knowing When to Let Go and Let Someone Else Take It The journalist W. James “Jim” Antle III was pressed up against a deadline on a story. He had been working with the material long enough that he doubted he could look at it with fresh eyes any longer. So he sent what he had up the editorial chain with a note. The note said that he didn’t know if it was a good piece or a bad piece but that it had “the overall quality of doneness.” That was the right call. Sometimes work product, particularly in a creative field, needs a second pair of eyes for it to be improved. Multiple iterations A first draft is almost never perfect. Instead, it’s like a rough sketch or a “thumbnail,” to borrow a term from the world of comic books. It provides the outline for the finished piece and helps writers and other professionals determine what sections to pay closer attention in refining the product further. Employees in any number of other fields often can figure out these things on their own. After al...