Gilad"s shared items

Showing posts with label hapiness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hapiness. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Putting the inner engine on fire


Your motivation, productivity, happiness will all come if you can only find out your special "Voice".


The motto of my life should be

"When I engage in work that taps my TALNET and fules my PASSION that raises out of a great NEED in the world that I feel drawn by CONSCIENCE to meet - therein lies my calling"
from The 8th Habit by sthephen covey

When reviewing my goals and life I should ask:
TALENT - what are my skills and strengths?
PASSION - what am I passioned about - personal growth, robotics, israel, web2, programming, hiking...
NEED - What does society and people need
CONSCIENCE - What are my core values

Am I following my inner voice and making a change?

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

How to enjoy your daily chores or any other boring activity


Make them enjoyable by transforming them to a game.

Let's face it , chores are boring and unsatisfying. If we could we would have delegated them to someone else or postpone doing them forever. However without washing dishes, washing the floor, throwing the garbage and cleaning the bathroom our home would look like after a hurricane.

The dilemma is to procrastinate about doing you chores, gain some productivity time, and loose it because your home is all cluttered and you can't focus on achieving your goals because of the smell. Or make your chores into a game.

Games are enjoyable because:

  • There is a clear goal.
  • Three are clear rules.
  • It requires skills.
  • We have instant feedback about our progress.
  • It requires our attention and therefor life troubles are forgotten.
  • We sense accomplishment.
So why not turn all our experiences into games? For example take washing the dishes.
The washing dishes game:
  1. Clear goal: finish washing the dishes as fast as you can.
  2. Clear rules: Max time per small item 5 seconds, medium item 10 sec and large pots 30 sec. you can accumulate extra time by doing an item faster and spend it on items that take longer. Important: the dishes must be clean
  3. Skills: Time tracking, math for keeping up with extra/spent time, optimize order of items and movements, ....
  4. Feedback: Dishes are being cleaned.
  5. Attention: If you are really into the game, you can't think of anything else but the time, how much extra time you have, what is the best order to get the best time ...
  6. Accomplishment: The kitchen is clean, you exercised your brain, you know how to clean the dishes better and faster.
Let's hear you, what other games for boring chores yo can think of?
If you take this step and make a game from every activity you take, you will enjoy every activity and have an enjoyable and happy life.

picture by Foto Blitz Color's buddy icon

Sunday, May 20, 2007

A map to hapiness and optimal experience

In his book Flow, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced as "Chick-Sent-Me-Hali") explores the map of finding happiness. His over a quarter of a century research suggests that happiness is achieved when a person achieves growth in his life through getting to a goal and overcoming all obstacles in the way to this goal. The mental condition in which a preson is found when struggling and getting his goal is called Flow.

To get into the Flow you need to:

  • Control you consciousness
  • Build order and focus by making realistic goals
  • Struggling to overcome obstacles and achieve goals is the most enjoyable activity you can be involved in.
  • Condition yourself to get into the flow and stay there.
  • Acquire physical and sensory skills to practice flow, like playing music, athleticism or Yoga.
  • Acquire symbolic skills like when playing chess or learning mathematics.
  • Transfer you work into flow-producing activity.
  • Have meaningful relationships with your family and friends.
  • Enjoy life in face of adversity.
  • Find Meaning in all you experience.
If you can do all that it does not matter if you are healthy or sick, rich or poor you could find hapiness in your life. And the most surprising fact is that it is doable.