How can we create life that looks more and more like us, week in and out? This is a look into creating such life through practical tips.The Calm Workbook has given inspiration for the ideas.

How to Prioritize your Life

We are often guided to set priorities for the day and week and afterwards reflect on them. But with too strictly worded a list, we may end up executing it instead of exploring life.Going to an unknown or inconvenient territory and places should make it to our priority list more often than not. There might indeed be quite a lot we haven't yet realized that is important to us.

How can you know it's valuable?

And what are your tools to get there?The most important tool that we can learn to use is reflective writing. How else can we start to improve our models and ideas thst make up life now? Writing down our goals, fears and musings with daily routine provides us with daily information about the life we want to direct.It can be just 15 minutes once or twice a day, and answering a few preset questions with a few sentences. First it can be difficult, so write whatever comes to mind. Soon you may notice you start providing creative answers to your own pressing questions.

What are you improving on?

Writing with a routine also helps us in describing people, troubles and musings with sentences that elevate their value for you.Imagine a friend comes to help you move. Instead of plainly describing the fact, imagine writing in the evening: "She is one friend I can always trust. I need to appreciate and respect her more." You were just able to build depth and strength into the friendship, that can become visible in reality with routine.In other words, look for the upper register, however mundane and banal the interactions are.

Use the upper register

Going to the museum to view works of art without cameras can provide us with a perspective that escapes our view in the daily grind.Every day we should seek to stare a painting, a nice view or an impressive photo for a while just to remind us that our busyness just might be quite insignificant.

View the Sublime

I've been reading the Calm Workbook, and it provided inspiration for these ideas.

A therapeutic and consoling workbook with exercises to soothe anxiety and create a state of calm. Most of us long to be a little calmer: too many of our days are lost to agitation and worry, stress and discord. Yet we know that we are at our best when we can manage not to panic and take challenges in our stride. Fortunately, a calm state of mind is not a divine gift. Even those of us starting from a more agitated position can systematically understand and lay claim to it. Too many books on this subject simply explain what it would be like to be calm. This is a workbook that takes us through the practical steps required to actually become calm. It is filled with exercises and prompts that deliver the self-understanding and self-compassion on which true serenity depends. Furthermore, the book invites us to build calming routines into our daily lives so that what we learn can stick with us and change us for the long term. Based on years of The School of Life's work in the area of anxiety and calm, this is a landmark workbook guaranteed to bring about the calmer state of mind we long for and deserve.

mindfulness

Mindfulness

books

Books

Most of us long to be a little calmer: too many of our days are lost to agitation and worry, stress and discord. Yet we know that we are at our best when we can manage not to panic and take challenges in our stride. Fortunately, a calm state of mind is not a divine gift. Even those of us starting from a more agitated position can systematically understand and lay claim to it. Too many books on this subject simply explain what it would be like to be calm. This is a workbook that takes us through the practical steps required to actually become calm. It is filled with exercises and prompts that deliver the self-understanding and self-compassion on which true serenity depends. Furthermore, the book invites us to build calming routines into our daily lives so that what we learn can stick with us and change us for the long term. Based on years of The School of Life’s work in the area of anxiety and calm, this is a landmark workbook guaranteed to bring about the calmer state of mind we long for and deserve.

The School of Life

The Calm Workbook

We link mindfulness to alone time, meditation and recognizing and labeling one's own thoughts. How can we apply mindful practices to real-world social situations?

Mindfulness in Social Situations

Before a (say) meeting, create a list of three to five clearly stated issues or questions to discuss, and also distribute them for others to comment a few days beforehand.This gives everyone time to think about the topics deeply and give their most valuable input. Live situations tend to favor the loudest, whereas the text form promotes deeper thought.

Reflect Beforehand🤔

You don't need to rush to fill the empty moments in the conversation. Aim to not always be the person to break the silence. This promotes individual thinking in the participants.On the other hand, having no silent moments is interpreted as a competition, the discussion instantly becomes a debate, and at that point most people stop suggesting any ideas.

Appreciate the Empty Space💡

Create a short narrative (one or two chapters) of what was covered with a list of next steps. Don't be afraid to use emotional adjectives, such as challenging, difficult or complex, if they describe well how the conversation went. Word choices are important because they create a shared understanding of the discussion afterwards, which promotes more valuable action.Just stating the facts in the style of "topic x was discussed" without "how it felt" can create resentment, if people start guessing why problems are being hidden.

Reflect Afterwards↩️

Postpone your own interpretations, and assume that everyone wants to find the best solution with their set of skills. One exercise is to accept not the first, but the second interpretation that comes to your mind when you listen others speak. Also learn to recognize and label your own thoughts and separate them from what the other person says. Actively making notes on paper can help in this: arrows, smiley faces and adding quick labels such as risk or 👍 promotes your own understanding of the issue.

Labeling Thoughts in Conversation🌟

Being more mindful to others brings more value to interactions. It means actively listening to the other person as well as our own thought processes.

corporateculture

Corporate Culture

communication

Communication

Social Mindfulness

Being mindful of our own thoughts - watching them instead of running with them - can bring clarity to our daily behavior.However, it is beneficial that we learn to name certain positive thought patterns, so we understand where our thoughts - the cognitive antipatterns - are maybe taking us.

Mindfulness and Meaning

When there is a lot of uncertainty about the future, we can end up analyzing little gestures and what others have told us - to the point that we end up creating false scenarios that are either overly positive or negative.When facing with this situation, you can label the thought by telling yourself: "This is the hyperactive meaning pattern."

Hyperactive Meaning

Because social media is built on daily engagement and likes, we can become addicted to the validation of others: the more likes and followers, the more we gain popularity and status - at least in our own mind.It is good to ask ourselves daily: What am I looking for in this service? What are my goals?In any case we are promoting something, so what kind of lifestyle, ideas and world view do you want to promote?This way you can attach the meaning of engagement to this goal of yours, instead of measuring your personal self-worth.

Social media can maintain hyperactive meaning

We constantly calculate risks as our everyday activity and try to prepare for them. If it's raining, we take an umbrella, if it's cold we wear a jacket.However, this calculation can become counterproductive when we are shielding ourselves from disappointment and as a result, we don't act.When facing this situation, ask two questions: What's the worst that can happen? What's the best?Then face the situation with a clear mind: focus on breathing and relax the best you can.

Hyperactive cognition and taking risks

Humor brings people together. Sense of humor is something you can develop, but it requires loosening your inner critic somewhat.The best humor is quick witted. In other words, the joker is first in the situation to create meaning in a new and confusing situation.

Humor can help with creating positive meaning

Philosophies such as existentialism start from the individual and their meaning process. However, meaning is not only what I decide it to be - it is what we as a group discover, communicate and implement daily.

Meaning is collectively developed

<ol><li>Reflect by writing or create a daily audio log</li><li>Create a project and timetable for it</li><li>Organize a party with friends with a special meaning</li></ol>

The Calm Workbook

Social Mindfulness

How do we create meaning?

Arttu Vanninen