Personal Development Blog For Living Your Full Potential

Do you know why Steve Jobs insisted that the original iPhone have only one button? Because nothing succeeds like simplicity. Take out your iPhone, if you have one, and compare it to a Comcast remote. See the difference? Sleek simplicity versus mind-boggling complexity.

When this woman was forced to sit in a dark room for hours at a time, she found inspiration in an unlikely place: a handyman who would admire her decor. The post When Parents Tried to Fix Her Visual Impairment, She Was Inspired By a Poster and a Handyman (MOTH Monday) appeared first on Good News Network .

By Leo Babauta There’s nothing we can do more to further our meaningful work and make the impact that we want to make in the world than to: Pick our most important, meaningful tasks And dive into them with full focus And yet, it seems to be a challenge for almost every person on this planet. Very few people regularly overcome distraction, procrastination, the urge to do small tasks or check email and messages, rationalization and running from discomfort to our usual comforts. So in May, I’m launching a challenge in my Sea Change Program called Dive Into Important Tasks . It starts on Monday, May 6, but you can join today and commit to the challenge. This challenge is about picking out your high-impact, high-priority tasks every day, and then diving into it, letting go of the urge to go to distractions, the urge to procrastinate, the uncertainty that comes with these meaningful tasks. It’s about overcoming our age-old habits of procrastination, and diving into our meaningful ...

We should all have such a hobby we love to practice as passionately as the one that Dion does. He is even willing to give up a prosthetic leg to do so. The post Solving the Mystery of a Prosthetic Leg Found Atop a Pile of Sawdust Reveals Man’s Passionate Hobby (GNN Podcast appeared first on Good News Network .

By Leo Babauta How often have you half-assedly committed to something, but didn’t really put your entire being into following through on that commitment? How often have you said you were going to do something, and then just dropped it because you were too busy or didn’t have the energy? How often have you said you were going to change your habits … and then didn’t stick to it? How many times have you said you were going to take a course, read a book, take on a challenge, start a new hobby, write a book, start a business … and then you barely even start on it (if you start at all)? For myself, this all happens at an alarming rate. My commitments are often not even half commitments, they’re like quarter commitments. And interestingly, I’d say I’m better at it than most people! Maybe not the best in the world, but better at sticking to my commitments than 75% of the world. And I suck at it, in many ways. I start a diet and barely last a couple days on it. I pick an exercise program ...

If you want a better life, choose better problems to have. Problems will always be a part of our lives. They come and they go but they never go away forever. Don’t make the mistake of wishing that life was free of problems. It’s like wishing to have the perfect life. There is no such thing as the perfect life. There’s the good and the not so good in life. If you think that money or love solves all problems, then you’re going to be in for a surprise. Instead what you get are a new set of better problems to deal with. Listen to today’s episode to learn that problems are a part of life. You just have to decide what problems you want to deal with in your life. You can deal with problems about being stuck and hopeless in life or you can deal with problems while living the life you created for yourself. Join the free Get Busy Living group Are you on Facebook already? If so, join the Get Busy living community there. Click here to join right now . Subscribe to the Show To make sure ...

If you could make a single hire that would revolutionize your productivity, would you do it? Of course you would! But we’ve found that most leaders procrastinate when it comes to hiring an executive assistant.

Here’s a fun origin story about the all-night party that preceded the first modern bungee jump using a device invented by Oxford students...  The post This Daredevil Took the World’s First-Ever Modern Bungee Jump – After Partying All Night (GNN Podcast) appeared first on Good News Network .

As business owners, we’ve learned that we can’t do our best work sandwiched between meetings and phone calls. We need focused time for strategizing, writing, and working out difficult problems. You probably do too.

I finished the third week of my month long project to get a basic understanding of quantum physics. I wanted to tackle this project for two reasons. First, because quantum mechanics always interested me. It’s part of the most successful scientific theory we’ve ever devised, yet it is also intuition-defying and confusing. To really understand it, I’d have to work hard on understanding the mathematics behind it. The second reason for tackling this project was that I wanted to try out a shorter project completely livestreamed. Every minute I spend working on the project is done live, meaning there’s nothing omitted or edited out. Few people will watch even more than a small percentage of it, but I’m hoping this approach to doing projects makes them easier to document than projects I’ve done in the past. What Happened This Week This class has been harder than I expected. I knew it was going to be hard going into it, which was part of the reason I chose this project, but the difficulty ...

By Leo Babauta Someone recently asked me about getting frustrated when they feel overloaded, and then shutting down or lashing out. “This has been something I’ve struggled with for most of my life. I had an instance today where I could have been more calm and rational about the situation but calm and rationality gave way to frustration and anger. I’m wondering what habits I can use instead to keep from falling into fits of anger.” This probably sounds familiar to some of us. We feel overloaded, and then maybe lash out at someone in frustration and anger. This comes from the hope that things will be calm, orderly, simple, solid, and under control. The world doesn’t comply with this hope, however, as it is chaotic, disorder, constantly changing, never fixed, groundless. So we get frustrated, angry at others, and feel anxiety. So how do we deal with the frustration that arises? How can we create a habit of calm? I’m going to share a series of practices that you can turn into habit...

By Leo Babauta A little boy was told by his father, from a young age, that he wasn’t good enough. Not in so many words, but through his actions — by criticizing him, yelling at him, hitting him, leaving him. The boy grew up into a man, knowing that he was unworthy of praise, of success, of love. The boy, as an adult, got a job, but didn’t really think he was good enough to do the job well. He faked it, deathly afraid every single day that he would be found out and mocked, then fired. He tried to hide, not to put himself in the spotlight, because then maybe no one would see his unworthiness. But he was always deathly afraid of people seeing him fail. So he held himself back, careful not to do anything where he might fail. He put off taking on tough tasks, and formed a long habit of procrastination. This came to rule his life, affecting his health habits, financial habits, relationships. The boy, now that he was an adult, got into a couple of long-term relationships, hoping to find ...

Listen to this New York City feminist tell her story about how she proved her naysayers wrong by nailing a drum solo in high school. The post Despite Being Bullied by the Boys, Woman Nailed Her Drum Solo in a Velvet Gown (MOTH Monday) appeared first on Good News Network .

Keanu Reeves became the perfect travel companion when a plane was forced to land 2 hours away from its destination with dozens of passengers stranded in Bakersfield. Hear our Good News Guru tell the fun story on the radio in Los Angeles—during the March 29, 2019 Ellen K. Morning Show on KOST-103.5. SEE the video and full story on GNN… Subscribe […] The post More Keanu Kindness: Actor Delights Passengers After Plane Makes Emergency Landing (GNN Podcast) appeared first on Good News Network .

By Leo Babauta We all deal with stress on a daily basis — whether it’s the stress of being busy and overwhelmed at work, having to deal with personal crises, traffic, relationships, health, finances … stress can be a big part of our lives. And stress has some strong effects: it makes us less happy, less effective, less open-hearted in our relationships, it tires us out, makes us less healthy, and can even create mental health issues if it rises to levels of anxiety. So let’s look at how to let go of stress, whenever we notice it. What You’re Struggling With Why do we get stressed out, feel anxiety or feel overwhelmed? Because we want the world to be calm, orderly, comfortable, and the world isn’t going along with those wishes. Things are out of control, not orderly, not simple, full of interruptions and unplanned events, health problems and accidents, and things never go as we planned or imagined. But this is the way the world is — the stress comes not because the world is messy...

Last week was the second week of my month-long project to get a foundation in quantum mechanics , with the entire project being livestreamed . Why I’m Tackling This Project The inspiration for this project came about a year ago. I stumbled upon 8.04 , MIT’s first class in quantum physics and watched some of the lectures. While I could follow it at a very high level, the math went totally over my head, despite having done a number of math classes during the MIT Challenge . Ultralearning, intense and self-directed learning, is probably the only way to really get an intuition. Just watching videos and reading books isn’t enough. I would actually have to work through hard problems to wrap my head around what’s going on. Just watching videos wouldn’t cut it. Thoughts on Livestreaming The other motivation for this project was to try doing a project livestreamed. Documenting my previous ultralearning projects was always an additional chore. After every week of MIT classes, I would have t...

We are so excited to announce the release of my (Michael’s) latest book, Free to Focus: A Total Productivity System to Achieve More by Doing Less ! In fact, we’re having a party!

How we all would love more time in our life to do more of what we want. I’m not talking about more time to spend on social media or watch TV unless that is a vital part of your life and business. I’m talking about more time to improve your health, learn, spend time meeting new people, spending time with family and friends, or working on a passion project. In this episode, I talk about why you’ve been using time as a excuse to avoid doing what you need to do. I also talk about why you don’t need more time but instead need to look at what you’re making a priority in your life. Join the free Get Busy Living group Are you on Facebook already? If so, join the Get Busy living community there. Click here to join right now . Subscribe to the Show To make sure you don’t miss a single episode of the podcast, subscribe with your favorite platform. iTunes  – Sticher  – RSS Review the Podcast in iTunes If you enjoyed the show, please  rate and review my podcast in iTunes ....

Last Monday, I announced a new ultralearning project: trying to get a good grasp of the physics behind quantum mechanics . In particular, I decided to try to tackle MIT’s 8.04 – Quantum Physics I , similarly to how I tackled other MIT classes during the MIT Challenge . As an experiment, I decided to try livestreaming the entire project. Every lecture I watch, problem set I do, Feynman Technique I try and frustration I encounter is all happening live on camera: How the First Week Went In terms of the class content itself, the first week went fairly well. There are 24 lectures and 10 problem sets. By the end of the first week, I have gotten through the first 10 lectures and 4 problem sets. The pace, however, shouldn’t imply I’ve been finding the class easy. Most of the problem set questions have stumped me without getting hints back-and-forth from the solutions, so it’s clear there’s still a lot of work to be done. In particular, my prerequisite classes are either missing (I didn’t...

We’re so excited that Michael’s new book is coming out on Tuesday! It’s called Free To Focus: A Total Productivity System to Achieve More by Doing Less and today you’re getting to listen to the first chapter here on this bonus episode of Lead to Win .

By Leo Babauta I have a problem, and I think most people do as well: I want to do everything. OK, not actually every single thing, but I want to do more than I possibly can: I want to do everything on my long to-do list, today I want to take on every interesting project I want to say yes to everyone else’s requests, even if I know I’m already too busy I want to travel everywhere, and see everything that’s interesting I want to try every delicious food, and I always want more of it (and I always eat too much) I want to watch every interesting TV show and film I want to read everything interesting online I want to take on a lot of interesting hobbies — each of which would take me many hours to master I want to spend time with everyone I love, with every friend — and also have a lot of time for solitude! Obviously, this is all impossible. But I bet I’m not alone in constantly wanting all of this and more. There’s a term for this in Buddhism that sounds judgmental but it’s n...

If you’re looking for the shortcut to losing weight getting six pack abs, then you’re not going to find it here. But if you’re looking to get started with losing weight and a goal of six pack abs, then you will benefit from today’s episode. I just finished doing ten pushups every day for 31 days. It was a fun challenge for me to see what would happen if I did that. Now that I am done, I can look back and see what I gained from doing it. I did gain some muscle improvements which I expected from doing pushups daily. However, the biggest changes happened with my confidence and motivation. I hope you enjoy today’s episode and you are inspired to start your own commitment challenge if you need a good kick in the butt to get into taking action in your life. Join the free Get Busy Living group Are you on Facebook already? If so, join the Get Busy living community there. Click here to join right now . Subscribe to the Show To make sure you don’t miss a single episode of the podcast, ...

By Leo Babauta Our days are filled with chaos, busyness and noise — often with very little time for intentional activity, quiet, solitude, mindfulness. But we can intentionally create that lovely, mindful space that we crave. Today I invite you to join me and a thousand others in my Sea Change Program as we launching into the Beautiful Mornings Challenge, which is about creating simple, lovely morning routines, and waking just a little earlier to make space for those intentional activities. It’s about creating some space for meditation, reflection, movement, writing, or anything else you’d like to have room for in your life. And finding some space in the mornings for that, a sacred space that takes advantage of the quiet and beautiful light of the mornings. Here’s how the challenge works: Week 1: You pick one thing to do in the morning and wake up a little earlier to do it . There will be additional instructions for this first week, but the idea is that we’re easing into it. We...

Not only was the mini-fridge a perfect reward for their hard labor, they became folk heroes and learned the history of the ‘Little Appliance That Could’. The post After Exhausting Day of Hard Work, Two Friends Find ‘Heaven Sent’ Fridge in the Middle of a Field (GNN Podcast) appeared first on Good News Network .

What’s your biggest distraction? Be honest! For us, there’s no question about it—our biggest distraction is ourselves. Too often, we find ourselves responding to text messages or jumping from one low-priority task to another instead of tackling more demanding work. Well today, we’re going to show you how to beat distractions and make yourself more productive than ever!

By Leo Babauta Creating a life of focus, purpose and mindfulness is a tough thing these days. If you’re like me, you want to bring forth your gifts to the world, but you’re pulled in a thousand directions, plagued by overwhelm, distractions, a ton of messages and emails, and so many obligations that it’s causing you to put off doing the important work you want to do in life. You would like to: Be more mindful and find a greater sense of focus in your life Be more effective in your work and life Achieve a sense of peace and calm amidst daily uncertainty Accomplish projects without getting waylaid and distracted by a thousand other directions Unfortunately, it’s not always so easy. The Demons of Chaos stand in your way: Other people’s demands, and a pile of emails and messages Distractions from social media and other online comfort foods for the distracted mind Putting important things off because of the uncertainty & discomfort of them It’s not easy dealing with these ...