Personal Development Blog For Living Your Full Potential

By Leo Babauta I work with a lot of people on their difficulties, and one of the biggest ones people have is some variation of, “I am falling short of my expectations (or others’ expectations and I feel guilty, shameful, inadequate.” In fact, I would guess that most people feel that they’re letting themselves and others down a lot of the time. I told one of my clients, “I see a possibility for you where you feel that nothing you do is wrong, in a shameful way.” This is the possibility that I see for all of you as well — that you can’t do anything wrong. You might make mistakes or fail, but it can’t be wrong in a shameful way. What would that be like for you? You work hard, you fall short, and you don’t feel bad about it. You just keep trying your best. You keep failing, but see it as learning and growth. You keep deviating from your plan, but don’t feel that there’s anything wrong with you. All of it is peace, learning, curiosity, exploration. Nothing is wrong or bad. What would...

Leaders all want to achieve. But sometimes we can be our own worst enemy. Either we’re too perfectionistic, or too much of a people pleaser, or so much of a conflict avoider that we have trouble getting things done. It’s frustrating and discouraging to fall into the same old traps over and over. 

Recently I attended a very productive meeting. It was long, but we accomplished what we set out to do. We made significant decisions, established accountabilities, and left the meeting knowing exactly what was expected of us. I think everyone left feeling that it was a good use of time. Unfortunately, too many corporate meetings don’t go this well. Often, they are a complete waste of time. But the good news is that they can be substantially improved. As I wrote in my book  No-Fail Meetings , meetings can actually multiply the effectiveness of your team. Toward that end, here are seven rules for more effective meetings. 1. Establish hard edges. Good meetings start and end on time. When you start late, you inadvertently penalize the punctual and reward the tardy. This makes the problem worse rather than better. People get “trained” to come late because they know nothing significant will happen until well after the announced start time. When you finish late, you also frustrate...

I’ve run my own business for over a decade, writing and selling books and courses. In the beginning, it was just me. For the last few years, I’ve had a small team. When I see people promoting entrepreneurship, the reasons for it are usually simple: more money, greater freedom, no boss. But for me, the biggest draw to running a business was the pure meritocracy of it. If you can sell stuff, you make money. If you can’t, too bad. Few professions are so directly tied to results. Even if you’re a great worker, your value is filtered through the perception of your boss, your colleagues and office politics. Academics need grants, tenure and peer approval. A programmer might be ten times as productive as his peers, but probably won’t get paid ten times as much (the other workers might think it unfair). Incomes in most professions are compressed. Superstar employees tend to get paid less than they’re actually worth—because what they’re actually worth is often obscene. At the same time, ...

By Leo Babauta When I first started practicing Zen meditation years ago, I thought it was to make me more calm. Then it was to make me less reactive. Then to make me less attached to things. These things all happen if you meditate regularly, as many of you know. But one of the most helpful things I’ve done is to drop the goal of meditation and mindfulness. And just be with my experience. I think of this as the mindfulness practice of direct experience, and it’s something you can do every day, as many times as you can remember. It’s quite ordinary, and also quite a bit magical. The practice of meditating on the breath is how this starts, of course: you stay with the direct experience of feeling your breath, in and out, the sensations of breathing your breath. Your mind wanders, you notice, you come back. If you like, you can label it “thinking” before you come back to the breath. But you keep coming back, even if you’re sidetracked for 5 minutes. That is practice for direct experie...

By Leo Babauta I’ve come to realize that smart people are very good at creating super persuasive arguments for why the shouldn’t do the thing they’re fearing doing. This past week, I’ve worked with half a dozen intelligent people who have convinced themselves to give in to their resistance, over and over. They’re persuasive, convincing people, and when it comes to convincing themselves, they are really good at it, as there isn’t even anyone to argue back . So they convince themselves, in the moment of fear and resistance, not to do the thing they told themselves yesterday they want to do. This results in not sticking to their word to themselves, not doing the habits they want, not doing the important, meaningful work they’ve always wanted to do. So how do we overcome our own persuasive rationalizations? I’ve learned a few things working with these wonderful and intelligent people. Let me share them with you. Start from Your Best Mindset Mike Tyson had a famous phrase that went s...

Leaders all want to achieve. But sometimes we can be our own worst enemy. Either we’re too perfectionistic, or too much of a people pleaser, or so much of a conflict avoider that we have trouble getting things done. It’s frustrating and discouraging to fall into the same old traps over and over. 

There’s an old joke about an economist walking down the street when he steps on a $100 bill lying on the ground. He spots it, but decides to walk right on by. “After all,” he chuckles to himself, “if that had really been a $100 bill, someone else would have picked it up already!” It’s easy to make fun of this way of thinking, but maybe the economist being lampooned here is actually right. When’s the last time you saw a lot of cash lying on the ground? In the real world, people don’t let $100 bills linger on the sidewalk. Finding lost money is nice, but otherwise trivial. Instead, let’s consider the more abstract (and important) version of this problem, namely: how many opportunities are lying under your feet that you might be ignoring? The implications of this are vast. If a business idea is so great, why isn’t anyone else doing it? If a scientific discovery is ripe to be found, why isn’t there a team of academics already probing for the answer? If something is broken, why isn’...

By Leo Babauta One of the most common problems among people I work with and coach is the feeling of always being busy. And then it becomes a rationalization: I can’t honor my commitments because I’m too busy! I can’t be with my family or friends because I’m too busy. I can’t work out, meditate, shut down at night to get to sleep, or make time for solitude and disconnection … because I’m too busy. Most of us have used this “too busy” rationalization, because it feels very true . It feels absolutely true that we’re too busy. And there’s a corollary to this: if we want to be less busy, we have to get all our work done first (and be more busy in the meantime). Is it true? Or can we develop a habit of not being busy, even with the same workload? Let’s get at the heart of this always-busy habit, and then reverse it. The Always-Busy Habit It’s a little complicated, because there are a number of components to the always-busy habit: The tendency to say yes, take on too much, and overc...

How to Pivot with Dignity and Respect Face it. You will eventually quit your job. It may be this year. It may be next. It may be ten years from now. But it’s inevitable. It’s only a matter of time. The only real question is: How  do you pivot (professionally) without burning your bridges? After all, you may want to come back. I left one company, Thomas Nelson, and eventually returned and became the CEO. You never know. At the very least, you may need a reference. Unfortunately, many people don’t always end their tenure at a company as well as they began. The key is to begin with the end in mind . As leaders, we should be intentional about everything we do—even quitting. Let’s start with the outcome we want. You want your employer and fellow employees to celebrate your contributions, grieve your departure, and eagerly welcome you back if ever given the chance. It’s possible, but only if you handle your departure well. Before you turn in your resignation—or even begin looking ...

By Leo Babauta In the middle of last month, I set myself a 45-day discipline challenge, just to see what my mind would do. I like the idea of pushing myself out of my comfort zone, and so I decided to take on 12 things at once, which is against my usual advice! The challenge isn’t over yet, but I’d like to share some of my findings so far. So my challenge for 45 days was to follow these 12 things each day: Wake early (between 5-6am, which is early for me these days) Meditate first thing Read Plan my Most Important Tasks (MITs) Do my first MIT early Cold shower Fast until mid-afternoon Study in the late afternoon Walk in the late afternoon Exercise (weights, only 3 days a week) Meditate in the evening No alcohol I should note that none of these is individually that hard for me, and I’ve done them all before at different time. Even putting them all together isn’t crazy hard — the challenge is sticking to them for 45 days to see what happens in my mind. And it turns ou...

To scale yourself, you need to delegate your work to others. But delegating tasks isn’t as easy as it sounds. No matter how hard you try, the results often don’t meet your expectation. It’s frustrating, and it can feel like a waste of time.

Over the years, I’ve read hundreds of books and recommended more than a few on this blog. Below, I’ve organized the best books I’ve read. If you’re looking to expand your library with something great, these are some of my favorites. My 5 Favorite Books Below I’ve lumped books into specific categories. However, these five books have impacted me the most: Getting Things Done . The best book on personal productivity, it inspired me as it has countless others with a systematic approach to getting work done. The Enigma of Reason . What is reason? Why are human beings the only animals that seem to possess it, and why does it fail so often? The theory proposed in this book transformed my view of what it means to think and live, with implications that go far beyond the seemingly narrow topic. Read my summary here, or listen to the podcast discussion episode. Deep Work and So Good They Can’t Ignore You . Cal Newport’s two best books (in my opinion) which have formed the basis of much of...

“It is in your moments of decision that your destiny is shaped.” ~Tony Robbins By Leo Babauta Over and over, throughout the day, we make the Hundred Little Decisions: to work on this, to check email, to go to this website, to respond to messages, to grab a bite to eat, to meditate or exercise or do yoga or have tea or watch a video or push into deep purpose. The Hundred Little Decision shape our day. They determine whether we’ve had a day of focus and calm and meaningful work, or distraction and procrastination. It turns out, we can train ourselves at the decision point. When we have one of the Hundred Little Decisions come up, we can train how we’d like to respond. Do we want to go to distraction? To response mode? To comfort? To avoidance? Or do we want to do something connected to our mission and purpose? To something more meaningful than our comfort? Let’s look at how to train at the decision point. Start with the Motivation If the motivation for this training is, “Becau...

3 Steps to Follow When You're Tired of Feeling Uncertain Early in my career, I was the marketing director for a book publishing company. Because of my workload and the ongoing pressure to produce results, I felt overwhelmed. I figured it was only a matter of time before my boss discovered that I was in over my head. This produced uncertainty. I was paralyzed and afraid to act. Instead, I worried and spent an inordinate amount of time thinking through worst-case scenarios —something I am pretty good at. I could see this would become a self-fulfilling prophecy. I struggled to move. But the more I focused on the struggle the less traction I seemed to get. The Advice I Needed Frustrated, I went to a wise, older colleague and poured out my soul. He listened patiently and then said something I will never forget: “Mike, just do the next right thing.” “That’s it?” I asked. “Yep. That’s it,” he replied. “You’re overthinking it. Just do the next right thing. It will be okay.” That...