Affirmations

Meditation helps to counter our tendency to stop paying attention to new information in our environment. Other studies have found that mindfulness meditation can reduce mind-wandering and improve attention.

Larger randomized controlled trials are still needed to understand how meditation might work with other treatments to help people manage attention-deficit disorders.

Long-term, consistent meditation mindfulness changes our ability to handle stress in a better, more sustainable way.

• Practicing meditation reduces the inflammatory response in people exposed to psychological stressors.
  
• Mindfulness practices help us to be less reactive to stressors and to recover better from stress when we experience it. 
  

Authenticity is about getting closer to our true identity.

The more authentic we become, the more we are authoring our lives, and not simply living someone else’s script. And the more authentic you become, the greater is your sense of well-being.

It relates to our tendency to recognize cognitive biases in others, without noticing them in ourselves. In other words, our brain isn’t built to easily spot our own lack of self-awareness.  

After examined the traits that contribute to the effectiveness of successful leaders, researchers concluded that a high level of self-awareness was the strongest predictor of success: when leaders are self-aware, they know how to hire subordinates who are strong in the areas where they themselves are weak.

Although we are currently experiencing the highest living standards in the history of mankind:

• Depression rates are constantly rising in the US since the mid-1930s.
• Approximately 40 million American adults are dealing with anxiety disorder.
• Over 600,000 children of 5 and under are on some type of psychiatric drug in the US.

According to the existential psychologist, Rollo May:

• “Depression is the inability to construct a future.”
• "Anxiety comes from "not being able to know the world you’re in, not being able to orient yourself in your own existence.”

Parents' frame of mind impacts their children. Parents should not blame themselves when their children struggle.

Since parents lead by example, treating themselves with compassion and without judgment can help their children to do the same.

Many parents stop meditating once they have children. But new research suggests that even brief interventions can be helpful.

• Take two breaths of kindness wherever you are.
• Find moments of newness while engaged in your daily tasks of living.
• Bring awareness and gratitude to the everyday things you take for granted.

Turn the situation inward and analyze your triggers and reactions to these situations. 

• How do you react to a difficult person in your life?
• How does your difficult person react to your reactions?
• If the other person is the problem, are you growing unhealthy actions and reactions in response to him or her?
• Are you the difficult person driving others to reactive behavior?
• How do others react to your actions and responses?

Separate the facts from your assumptions. 

Separate yourself and your reactions from the negative emotions you may be feeling in the moment. 

It's a personal, external and fleeting feeling. It depends upon external things, situations, and experiences and can be achieved through possessions and experiences.

Happiness includes feelings of gratification, excitement, merriment, playfulness, amusement, and enjoyment.

It's freedom from disturbance. A state of tranquillity and harmony that can be felt collectively or individually.

Peace and happiness can be entwined, but the circumstances from which they arise are different.

Today’s career landscape isn’t a lineup of tunnels, it’s a massive, impossibly complex, rapidly changing science laboratory. 

Time. A typical career will take up somewhere between 20% and 60% of your meaningful adult time.

Quality of Life. Your career has a major effect on all your non-career hours.

Impact. Whatever shape your career path ends up taking, the world will be altered by it.

Identity. We tell people about our careers by telling them what we are.

Change, even if it’s positive, can lead to emotional and physical stress: you find yourself in a situation where you don’t know what to expect and that leads to confusion.

A professional can help you through a situation that feels insurmountable.

Everyone makes missteps and occasionally slips into risky behaviors.

But when you can’t stop a specific behavior, if it’s interfering with your ability to function properly in your daily life, or it’s negatively affecting your relationships, it’s time to pause and seek help.

As a human being interacting with other human beings, we learn that how we show up in the world seems to matter. 

If we have learned through our own social experiences that certain patterns of behavior, such as being extraordinarily busy and constantly on-the-go lead to being successful, connected and accepted by others, then we may find it appealing to engage in those behaviors.

Merriam-Webster defines the word productive as, "Yielding results, benefits or profits." Essentially, it means that we have something to show for our hard work. 

Being busy has to do with an amount of time, where productivity has more to do with our use of time.