Personal Development Blog For Living Your Full Potential

By Leo Babauta So often, we reject the experience in front of us. It’s usually out of habit, from not wanting this particular experience, not liking the discomfort or uncertainty … or really not liking the fact that we aren’t going to get what we want. We reject the experience in front of us: Not liking the way other people are acting (totally justified, they’re idiots!) Getting mad at ourselves for messing up again (you dumbass, why are you always doing that??) Shutting ourselves off to the uncertainty of whatever is going on, by distracting ourselves (ugh, I just can’t) Complaining about other people, often just in our heads (I don’t know why they have to be that way!) Shutting down, wanting to exit, when things get hard (I can’t take this anymore, why does she always have to complain??) Avoiding the discomfort or fear of something difficult (umm, that’s too hard, I’m going to tackle email!) This rejection of our experience is why we so often get frustrated with other p...

By Leo Babauta My Zen teacher Susan recently told a group of her students at the end of a Zen meditation retreat, “We’re all monastics now.” In this global pandemic, we’re in an era of isolation, retreat. We’re also in an era of heightened uncertainty. This can be a terrible thing, and drive us to loneliness and distraction … or it can be a time of practice, reflection, and deepening. We can choose to see ourselves as monks deepening into the stillness of a monastery. It’s our choice. If you’re staying home these days, it can be a time of endless Internet distractions … or you can open to the opportunity to use the beautiful solitude for meditation, reading, writing, contemplation, journaling. It can be a time of practice. If you’re feeling the anxiety of the moment, it can be a time of near breakdown and freneticism … or it can be a moment to slow down and be still. Practice mindfully with whatever feelings are coming up. You can go to the latest memes and viral videos (which...

By Leo Babauta All day long, we’re only giving anything a fraction of our attention. We’re distracted, multitasking, opening multiple browser tabs, checking phone messages and social media. I’m a part of this like anyone else. I’m not immune, and I don’t judge. This fractured, scattered, partial attention has many deleterious effects on our lives: We never really pour ourselves into any task, fully giving ourselves to the task. We can’t accomplish a craftsman-like devotion to our work. Our minds become frazzled, anxious, stressed from the constant rushing and switching. We never achieve any kind of peace and presence. By not giving our full attention to the person in front of us, we are shutting out the possibility of full connection. Of intimacy and trust. When we read and watch videos and listen to songs in a fractured, partial-attention mode, we lose the ability to really be with the writing, the creation. We lose the full power of the experience. When we work out while li...

By Leo Babauta These are times of heightened change, disruption, uncertainty, fear, anxiety. It can feel pretty crazy for most of us. So how do we cope? What can we do in the middle of chaos and crisis? This is when meditation becomes of critical importance. Without meditation, we have no way of dealing with the anxieties coming up. All of our old ways of coping (which don’t normally work very well) are not working at all: Distraction and ignoring (how can you ignore something that’s everywhere?) Procrastination and avoiding (you can’t avoid this crisis) Control of all kinds (you can’t control this, though we’re all trying to find ways to control) Exiting, quitting (you can’t exit from the world) Complaining, lashing out at others (you can do this, but it only makes the situation worse) Worrying (yep, that’s happening a lot) So if our usual ways of coping with worry and uncertainty cannot work right now … what can we do? We can freak out. Or we can meditate. It’s our cho...

By Leo Babauta In the middle of the chaos of the world right now, what can we do to take care of ourselves? Let’s talk about a handful of simple mindfulness practices that can be helpful. Breathe deeply into the belly . This is one to start with, no matter where you are or what you’re doing. We get caught up in our heads, stuck in a cycle of thoughts that are rarely very helpful. So to get out of our heads and into our bodies, we can do deep breathes, into the deepest part of our bellies. Do several breaths like this, maybe for 30-60 seconds if you have time. This not only calms you down, but helps you to be more present with your body and surroundings. Check on your feelings, give yourself compassion . Turn your attention to the sensations in your body, and notice how uncertainty and fear/anxiety might feel for you right now, as a bodily experience. This, again, helps get you out of your thoughts, but also it’s important to notice how you’re feeling. Practice giving these feeling...

By Leo Babauta The world is in a state of fear and uncertainty right now, and it’s stressful and overwhelming for most of us. This kind of fear, stress, uncertain and overwhelm can have some really strong effects on our lives: Constant fear and stress can cause anxiety problems, worsening sleep and health, depression and anxiety In a place of fear, we can often make bad decisions People can panic, overreact because of fear, and cause widespread confusion and disruptions Our relationships can deteriorate when we’re operating from a place of fear We become less productive, less focused, when we’re stressed It has an obvious impact on our happiness, including the impacts from all of the above These are just some of the strong effects from a constant sense of fear, uncertainty, stress and overwhelm. So how do we cope with this? Obviously, there’s no easy answer. Let’s talk about what I’ve found to work, and what I recommend right now. Dealing with the Uncertainty & Fear ...

By Leo Babauta Before I started Zen Habits, I was in a place in my life where I had a beautiful family, but I was stuck and dissatisfied with myself. I knew I wanted to change things — my health, finances, job, way that I was approaching life — but I didn’t really know what I wanted to do about any of it. Most of the time, I just ignored all of this, and distracted myself. I didn’t have any clarity on what I wanted or what I needed to do. This lack of clarity is felt in all of us very deeply, so that it shows up in how we talk, how we hold ourselves, how other people feel us. It affects our relationships, our jobs, our health. Then I got very clear that I needed to change. And clear that I wanted to quit smoking, start running, become vegetarian, start waking earlier, and start writing more. I went on to do all those and more. Clarity helps us to focus, to take action, to feel energized . A lack of clarity causes stress, inaction, a scattered focus, relationship difficulties, con...

By Leo Babauta This month, I’m issuing a challenge to all of you procrastinators … and no, you can’t make the joke that you’ll do it later! The challenge is called Undone: The Unprocrastination Challenge , and it’s a part of my Sea Change Program . The challenge is to set aside an “unprocrastination session” every day — it just has to be 5 minutes, but could be longer — and work on the things you’ve been putting off. It’s a training, and in the challenge I provide videos, articles and a live webinar to support your training and show you proven methods to overcome the old habit of procrastination. You can do this, absolutely. I’ve seen thousands of people get a lot of stuff done that they’ve been putting off, and many of them saw a permanent shift in how they tackled hard things. If you join Sea Change and do this program with us, you’ll get: Articles, videos and tips on this challenge A live video webinar with me where you can ask questions A community that will give you sup...

By Leo Babauta I was talking with a client about how he felt constantly behind on his email, Slack and other messages and small tasks. I suggested having regular times to do those things: 15 minutes in the morning and evening each for email and Slack (for a total of 30 minutes, twice a day), for example. He laughed and said, “Leo, I’ve tried that a thousand times and it hasn’t stuck!” I totally get it. We’ve tried to form some powerful habits, and they work for a little bit, until they fall off. But we can always come back. In fact, coming back to a habit might be the most powerful habit of all. Coming back, over and over again, just like we return to the breath, over and over again, after letting our minds wander. It’s the nature of our minds to fall off habits. Sometimes it takes a dozen attempts before it really clicks. Sometimes more. Falling off the habit isn’t a problem — it’s just a part of the experience of shifting patterns. The problem is that we think we should never ...

By Leo Babauta The truth is, most of us have a pretty adversarial relationship to time. There’s never enough. We’re always behind. It goes by too fast. We can’t do important things because we don’t have enough time. None of it is helpful. Most of it is bullshit. Let’s take the first one: there’s never enough time. This is powerful because there’s some truth to it: time is limited and precious. We will die, and while we don’t know how much time we have left in this life, we do know that it’s limited. It’s helpful to remember that we must make the most of our limited time! But time is also abundant. Think of the past few years — it might seem like they passed really quickly, but actually we had so many hours we can’t can’t them. We had a huge abundance of hours. Maybe we didn’t spend them wisely (I know I misspent quite a few hours), but we had plenty of time. We still do, today and this month and this year. The key is to see this abundance, and feel it in your body. It’s like the ...

By Leo Babauta Our lives are pervaded with addictions and distractions. Social media, shopping, favorite websites and video services, alcohol, cigarettes, biting nails, porn, drugs, sweets, fried foods, soda, coffee, gambling, gaming, workaholism, complaining, avoiding, procrastinating, perfectionism, fantasizing, rationalizing, self-hating, sex addiction, drama addiction. These addictions are some of the most common ways we have of soothing ourselves when we’re stressed or feeling bad about ourselves or others. When we’re feeling anxiety, insecurity, depression, anger, sadness, pain. When we’re feeling overwhelmed, bad about ourselves, self-doubt, uncertainty, discomfort. We sooth ourselves with our addictions, until it feels like we can’t stop. The first step to dealing with the addiction, of course, is to recognize that it’s a problem. I remember rationalizing for years why it was OK for me to smoke cigarettes. And to overeat. And to procrastinate. So many rationalizations! It ...

I was talking with a friend who very often doesn’t feel he has a clear direction in life, doesn’t operate on any solid principles, and usually doesn’t feel he’s clear on what he should be doing at any given moment. I completely relate to this difficulty: it’s the uncertainty of what you should be doing at this moment, or today, or in life. We feel this uncertainty all the time as stress, anxiety, fear — or simply the feeling that we’re doing things wrong. So I’d like to share how I’m working with this uncertainty … a small number of ideas I learned from Zen and from playing the game of Go (a Chinese strategy game more complex than chess, played with black and white stones on a 19×19 grid). In short, the ideas are: Keep the whole board in mind. Play one stone at a time. Dance with the uncertainty. Leave no trace. Let’s look at each of them — they’ve been incredibly helpful to me. Keep the Whole Board in Mind First, a disclaimer — I’m terrible at Go. I’m a beginner, though ma...

By Leo Babauta Mindfulness has (amazingly, wonderfully) become quite a buzzword in the last decade or so, and for good reason. It’s powerful, and can help us to become more present, happier, more focused, and much more. However, if you’re new to mindfulness, it’s easy to get the wrong idea from all the marketing you’ll find online. Images of people at complete peace with the world and themselves, full of bliss, simply by sitting still and meditating for a few minutes … they are beautiful images, but they don’t tell the whole truth. Mindfulness is powerful, and you should absolutely do it. But you should do it with your eyes wide open, knowing what’s up. So here’s my attempt at an honest guide to mindfulness. Mindfulness is hard . You can meditate and get antsy, want to get up, want to go do something else, plan your day, dive into your work, answer a few messages, search for some information you’re itching to know about. Mindfulness is hard, which is a good reason to do it. Mind...

By Leo Babauta Most people feel busy and distracted throughout the day — calm and focus and a feeling of purpose are fairly rare for most of us. We’re jumping from messages to social media to email to quick work tasks to a search for something we’re curious about, from dozens of messages to dozens of posts to a couple doze browser tabs. All day long, one quick thing to the next, putting off anything that requires much more focus than that. The term “monkey mind” captures this fairly well — our minds swinging from one branch to the next, jumping around without pause. It’s not quite accurate (monkeys rests a lot of the time, and it’s apes that swing from branches, not monkeys) … but the image is vivid enough. This is actually how our minds are much of the time, but it can feel stressful and unfocused. Many of us would like a calmer, more focused way of being, at least some of the time. How do we develop this kind of focused mind, able to come to rest? This is one of the biggest pro...

By Leo Babauta If we’re absolutely honest with ourselves, most of us are only half-committed to most things — in many cases, much less than half-committed. We say that we’re going to change our diet, but are we fully committed? Do we make a meal plan and buy the groceries and clear out the junk food and set time in our calendar to prep meals for the week and change our habit of eating out much of the time? Do we feel so committed in our hearts that we’d bet our lives on it? We make a commitment at work (to our team, client, partner) but we don’t fully show up. We get distracted, we procrastinate, we are only half in it much of the time. We do the same thing to the people we love — we’re only half there for them. How often do we show up fully, with deep commitment? This is not about blaming or shaming, not about being judgmental or criticizing ourselves. This is about getting clear on whether we’re fully committed to anything , and getting very clear on the effects of that in our ...

By Leo Babauta Let’s imagine that you’re a reasonably healthy adult with all of your basic needs met, people who care about you in your life, and things you enjoy doing available to you … you should be pretty happy, right? It turns out, even in this incredibly lucky scenario, most of us still struggle — stress, anxiety, frustration, overwhelm, letting ourselves and others down, disappointment, hurt feelings, anger, feeling like you’re always behind … it all creates a sense of unease that is not aligned with our fortunate circumstances. So how do we go about enjoying life, finding a sense of peace and calm and purposeful focus? I’ve found mindfulness practices to be the key. They’re not a magical solution to anything, but they do ease the suffering we experience in our lives. Those of you who who have practiced meditation for awhile know what I’m talking about. Let’s look at a few ways to deepen into the practice, if you’re interested. Step 1: Drop Into Direct Experience of the Mo...

By Leo Babauta What big task, project, chore, conversation have you been avoiding facing? It’s one of the biggest problems in many people’s lives — procrastination is one word for it, but I’ve found that “avoiding” is more accurate. We have something we don’t want to tackle or face, and so we keep ourselves busy and distracted so we can avoid it. Avoidance, of course, leads to a host of problems, including: If we avoid self-care, exercise, meditation, healthy eating, flossing … it leads to long-term health problems (including mental health stress). Things piling up can cause us to feel stress. Things not being taken care of can cause lots of difficulties as problems get worse. People might start to feel that we’re unreliable. We lose trust in ourselves, and we can often criticize ourselves and be harsh on ourselves. The last problem, by the way, is something we can address with the practice of trying to always be kind to ourselves. Harshness on ourselves is not useful, and w...

By Leo Babauta  The amount of time we spend fretting over what path to take, when we’re feeling uncertain, can sometimes be staggering. We’re entering into unknown territory, and we don’t know how to proceed. It happens all the time for many of us: we start a new job, launch a new venture, change careers, have to deal with incredible change, decide to write a book or create something online, put ourselves in a new social situation. Some of the things we do in response to this uncertainty: Extensive research, often to the point of very diminishing returns, sometimes to the point of being overwhelmed by how much information we’ve found. Buy books, courses, programs, other materials that we think will guide us — this isn’t necessarily a bad idea, but in truth, none of this will give us certainty. Try to find teachers or other people who will guide us, who have been there before — again, hoping that they’ll give us certainty, but often this isn’t a magic pill either. Delay maki...

By Leo Babauta I spoke with someone who so beautifully explained their biggest problem that I had to stop and catch my breath. It spoke to the human condition incredibly well. Some of the things they mentioned: I’ve been so frustrated with myself lately that I find myself fighting back tears. I feel confused and pulled in so many directions. I just don’t want to feel so scared all the time. It’s immobilizing me.  What is the right thing? What should I be doing? And why am I not managing to do it? What am I doing wrong? One of my favorite parts of what they said is: “So I guess, my biggest goal is to live without a general sense of fearfulness and terror, or panic, as if I have a pack of wolves on my heels, or I’m trapped in some weird escape room where I have to make the right choice – and no choice seems right.” Does any of this sound familiar? Let’s talk about those wolves on your heels. The Feeling of Wolves at Your Heels Many of us live with a fear that we’re doi...

By Leo Babauta A couple days ago, I invited you to join me in the Get Fit & Active Challenge in Sea Change … today, I’m going to invite you to something very different from that. It’s called the Create Fearlessly Challenge, and it’s a part of my Fearless Training Program. It’s for anyone who wants to: Create, write, make art, build a blog, post content online Design, plan, or launch a project (my personal challenge is to design a new small-group program called Fearless Mastery) Sew, craft, do woodworking, or make anything else with your hands Code, build a website or app, launch a minimal viable product Create or launch a business The idea is to set a 3-month goal for something you’d like to create … but then break it down into a smaller 1-month creation goal. Something you can build and/or launch in a month. Something you can do 4-5 times a week, ideally. Something that will take some fearlessness, in the face of the ever-present doubts, uncertainty, fear and avoidance...