The People Comfort Zone

• The quality of your life is determined by the quality of your thoughts. Mastering your mind means seeing setbacks as opportunities. 
• Occupy your mind with uplifting thoughts, because they will give you the energy you'll need to attain the success you desire.

• Visualize your goal.
• Keep yourself positively motivated.
• Make a deadline.
• Take steps daily.
• Laugh along the way.

You can only change your mindset if you consistently care about your thought process. Start thinking big about your tasks and imagine how they can influence your world.

You should start thinking big without reservations or hesitation. You can only contribute more, learn more, become more and stretch yourself and your own abilities beyond their current limitations if you give yourself permission to think beyond the obvious.

Don’t take things on face value, investigate their workings, assume nothing and question everything.

Start the curious habit of questioning everyday things and methods to get answers to questions you mostly ignore. Maintain an open mind and be willing to learn, unlearn and relearn.

Almost no popular self-help authors are going to have had the experience of pursuing a dream (like becoming an author) and not having it eventually work out. 

Understanding reality means that you have to accept that some of your dreams won’t come true just because you work hard enough, be creative enough or go to enough seminars. Don’t base your decisions on a false model of reality.

When pursuing a dream you have the underlying assumption that when you reach it you will be happy. That is false. 

Achieving goals doesn’t make you happy because achievements on their own hold no lasting emotional value. Only growth, fulfilment and passion has value.

It typically refers to a practice for training your attention. It is an awareness that comes through paying attention in the moment, but non-judgmentally.

It involves sitting down with closed eyes and focussing on feeling your breath go in and out. When your attention starts to wander, you take note and bring your attention back to your breath.

Meditation shows reduced activity in the amygdala, our brain’s threat detector. When the amygdala perceives a threat, it sets off the fight-flight-freeze response.

In a study, after practicing mindfulness for 20 minutes per day over just one week, participants showed reduced amygdala reactivity only while they were engaged in mindfulness, suggesting they need regular practice.

Start with a clear destination to determine your steps. Identify your values and live by them.

• Visualize in detail your own funeral. What are they saying about how you lived your life, and your relationships? What do you want them to say? Change your priorities accordingly.
• Break down different roles in your life - whether professional, personal or in a community. List 3-5 goals you want to achieve for each. 
• Define what scares you and write down exactly how you'll handle it.

Prioritize your day-to-day actions based on what is most important, not what is most urgent.

Be disciplined to follow these actions regardless of how you feel at any given moment. Maintain a primary focus on relationships and results, and a secondary focus on time.

By staying challenged you do not slip into the dangerous comfort zone. You can stay challenged by:

• Doing anything that you don't know how to do.
• Doing more than you have time for.

This makes your brain cells work in creative ways for you to figure out new things and how to incorporate them into your life.

If your goals are mediocre and small, you will slip into distractions and routine work. It's always better to have an audacious goal.