A client requested that I share my thoughts on stress-free parenting, as the mother of three and step parent to two. Yes, that’s five kids all under the same roof– and the noise that accompanies.  And while I have learned a lot about being a mother, and finding joy in parenthood, I also know that stress-free parenting is a myth.

Parents will always have stress: we not only have to deal with tantrums and scraped knees and refusing to eat anything you cook, but we worry about potential accidents, whether we are ruining our kids, whether our children will find happiness as adults and be able to provide for themselves and find love.

That said, I’ve learned that we can find peace.

Peace isn’t a place with no stress, but a place where you take the stress as it comes, in stride, and don’t let it rule you. You let it flow through you, and then smile, and breathe, and give your child a hug.

Are you anxious at times? I am. Let’s face it, there’s plenty of anxiety to go around: the downturn in economy, lay-offs, relationship crises, pandemics, violence – and that’s just for starters.

Actually, anxiety is a natural alarm system that keeps us safe and productive. But it can become a chronic mindset. When that happens, it can deaden joy and stifle creativity.

How to tackle anxiety
In my life it’s not so much the big-ticket items like the current influenza or the economic meltdown that make me anxious, it’s the fact that I tend to over-commit myself. The result is that I’m always a bit behind schedule. Anyone else feel like that?

One way to deal with overload is to pare down commitments, as Leo Babauta describes in his beautiful post, How to be less busy in a busy, busy world. Another way is to change our ingrained thought patterns and emotional responses.

Luckily there are some wonderful techniques that can help us to stay relaxed, focused, grounded, and cheerful – even under pressure. After all, anxiety is not produced by something external. It’s an internal response to stress. We can train the mind to respond in a more skillful way.

I want to share with you how I stay reasonably sane, grounded, and creative in the midst of a full life. But first let’s take a closer look at anxiety.

Fight-flight-freeze: three responses to anxiety
Anxiety is a low-grade fear. It’s difficult to pinpoint the exact cause of one’s anxiety. That’s because anxiety is pervasive, whereas fear has a clear target.

We are hardwired to respond in three different ways when faced with danger: fight, flight, or freeze.

Imagine that you are hiking in a National Park. Suddenly you spot a bear. Faced with immediate danger, you instinctively choose one of three options: you either try to scare off the bear by making yourself look big, or by shouting (that’s the ‘fight’ response). Or you immediately turn and run to safety (that’s the flight response). Or you stand very still in the hope that the bear won’t notice you (that’s the ‘freeze’ response).

Let’s look at how these responses play out in everyday life:

1. Fight: When we’re anxious, we tend to be irritable. This is the ‘fight’ response. Because anxiety is pervasive and doesn’t have a clear target, we tend to snap at those around us.

2. Flight: Sometimes we try to avoid what makes us anxious. People who suffer from severe anxiety even avoid stepping outside their home.

3. Freeze: The freeze response produces procrastination and stage fright. I certainly know about these two. You too?

Note that I’m talking about ordinary anxiety, and not about anxiety disorders. If you suffer from panic attacks or phobias, read this useful article, or get professional help.

Anxiety is an emotion that sends our mind into the future. After all, nobody is anxious about the past, right? As human beings we tend to think in stories that are like mind-movies. Anxious mind-movies usually have a ‘what if?’ scenario.

So what winds us up into anxiety are particular thought patterns and stories. Take a look at the following list and see if any points seem familiar:

1. Self-doubts: Do you doubt your ability? Do you think you haven’t got what it takes, in order to succeed?

2. Wanting Control of the future: Do you want to want to control what happens in future? The truth is that even if we lay great plans, the unexpected can happen. And life has inescapable tides: we age and finally die.

3. High self-expectations: Sometimes we become our own slave-driver. I must admit, that’s definitely a weakness of mine. It’s good to step back at times and check out whether our expectations are realistic – and kindly.

4. Fear of failure: Are you afraid to fail? The truth is that all learning entails failure. Prof. Tal Ben-Shahar, an exponent of the Positive Psychology movement says, “Learn to fail, or fail to learn.”

5. Not being present: This is a key factor of anxiety. When our thoughts dwell on the future, and we stop being truly present, that’s when we can become anxious.

As you can see in the list above, all these internal factors are mental habits that we can change in order to alleviate and transform anxiety. And it’s the last one – being present – that’s the key to inspiration.

Inspiration lives in the present
There is an amazing short video with Brother David Steindle-Rast – a Christian monk. As a boy, he experienced the last years of World War II in Germany. He tells of great hardships: never knowing where the next meal would come from, having to queue for hours for a small pitcher of water, and seeing bombs fall all around him.

Would you be anxious in a situation like this?

Surprisingly, Brother David wasn’t anxious – his experience was completely the opposite: it was one of the happiest times in his life! How could that be? His explanation is quite simple. Because there seemed no possibility of survival and no hope for the future, all he could do was to be in the present moment. This created a deep sense of happiness – in the midst of all that suffering.

Moments of inspiration – like watching the video of Brother David – remind us of our life purpose. We feel uplifted, excited, and yet grounded. I think the reason why moments of inspiration touch us so keenly, is because they remind us of our deepest aspirations.

Sometimes we confuse aspirations with personal goals, but they are completely different. Aspirations are the answer to the question: “What do I want to give the world?” Whereas personal goals are the answer to the question, “What do I want the world to give me?”

Four ways to transform anxiety into inspiration
Here are four ways you can start to transform anxiety into inspiration:

1. Simplify your life: The best guide I have seen so far, is Leo Babauta’s lovely new ebook The Simple Guide to a Minimalist Life. He takes you right through the necessary steps to simplify your life. It doesn’t happen overnight, but can definitely decrease anxiety in the long run.

2. Write everything down: Holding too many ideas and plans in one’s head can cause anxiety. A very simple remedy is to record all your ideas, dates, and schedules so that you free up your memory. Buy a simple notebook that you carry with you, or invest in a smart phone that can store appointments and idea.

3. Learn to relax: The anxious body is tense and needs rest and relaxation. There is a good relaxation and sleep hypnosis recording, created by Jon Rhodes. It’s free and you can find it here

4. Practice meditation: If you really want to change the mental habits that keep you ensnared in anxiety, you’ll find meditation a real help.

I know it can be daunting to learn to meditate. And busy people sometimes find it difficult to set time aside to practice meditation. I’ve come across an easy way to get into meditation. I call it the Three-Breaths meditation. You can do it in one minute or less. It’s a natural way to meditate and doesn’t require you to learn complicated techniques.

The Three-Breaths Meditation entails taking a few moments each day in order to pay tender regard to three breaths as they flow in and out of your body. For best results, keep upright posture so that your body and mind are well balanced. A thoughts come and go, observe them with soft attention and bring your focus gently back to your breath. I suggest practicing this easy micro-meditation a few times during the day. You’ll notice that it brings you right back home to the present moment.

Of course there’s a lot to be said about turning anxiety into inspiration – that’s the subject of some of the work I do with my clients and integral change work… But, I hope that you can find something in this post that helps you to start moving away anxiety and towards inspiration.

Learning to guide our mind away from unskillful emotions, like anxiety, fear or anger, and towards kindness and cheerfulness, is a wonderful way to enhance our life and bring about happiness.

If there’s one thing you take away from this post, I hope it’s that ease and inspiration come from experiencing the present moment.
Like. Now.

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

It is possible you already have mastered the art of relaxing.  If so, congratulations. You are a Get Less Done master. All you need now, perhaps, is to let go of the guilt you might feel, and enjoy this relaxation.

But for those of you who have forgotten how to relax, you’re going to have a tougher time. Here’s a hint: don’t stress out about it. If you don’t know how to relax, it’s OK. Breathe. Take it slowly. One step at a time.

Relaxation Tips for the Hopelessly Wired

• Take 5 minutes to go outside for a walk. Breathe the fresh air. Yes, it’s out there.
• Give yourself more time to do things. More time means less rush.
• After work, get outside, take in nature, run around if you can.
• Play. Play like a child. Play with a child… more cathartic than you might ever imagine.
• Give yourself a day off. Sleep. Watch TV. Eat bon bons.
• At work, give yourself an hour off. Don’t try to be productive. Just have fun.
• Work with someone who is exciting. Get excited about a project.
• Take evenings off. Seriously, no working in the evenings.
• Get a massage.
• Take a warm bath.
• Read.
• Breathe.
• Read and breathe and the same time.

Step by step, learn to relax. Learn that productivity isn’t everything, and creating is ALL. Moreover, creating is wonderful, but you don’t need to fill every second with work to create things of value– they are two very different animals. When you do work, get excited, pour yourself into it. When you change how you work, you will see what you create change… and then you can relax.

A couple, like an individual, typically has an instinct to try to solve one’s own problems. However, a couple—again like an individual—has blind spots that can be overcome. It is sometimes difficult to go beyond the immediate situation or issue without an objective party to help neutralize the high emotions enough to get to a place of understanding and negotiation. This is where couples work can help, and move you along further in less time.

Typically, couples come into therapy as a “last ditch” effort. Professional help is often put off until separation is imminent—the point at which one cannot “take it” anymore. The reluctance to seek help outside the marriage is understandable, but too often fuels the fire in perpetuating negative cycles. The good news is that if both individuals motivated to stay together, couples work can still be effective in repairing the damage in the connection and the hurt feelings. Recognition of these matters has encouraged newly formed couples—even before marriage—to enter couples work and correct the problems that keep getting in the way.

Intimacy is something we seem to take for granted—we should all be good at it, right? Knowledge and skills are required to maintain a healthy relationship. Through couples work, Relationships can look beneath the surface and see what’s “really going on,” rather than getting bogged down in hurtful petty arguments and minutiae, which serve to mask the deeper issue. Empathy for one’s partner, as well as for oneself, is key in breaking through the gridlock. In changework for couples, each one identifies and learns about their own and their partner’s problematic patterns in thinking and feeling that are repeatedly being triggered, causing interference in harmonious relating. These patterns are perpetuated through maladaptive coping styles, leading to a continuation of the destructive cycle.

In my approach, couples learn how to interrupt or even prevent the negative cycles from continuing by being aware of the triggers and patterns, and developing new ways of interacting. This opens up a new approach for couples in working with each other and navigating though conflicts toward resolution and better management of the relationship.

I’m not saying you should surf the web all day, or take naps all afternoon … but why not? Why not enjoy a much deserved, or a not so well deserved  nap? Why not take a long lunch and then a siesta? Why not enjoy a long bath, or a good book?

I hear client’s tell me often, “I just can’t seem to be productive…”

My answer: “Go with it.”

Certainly, we need to produce sometimes, especially if we have to pay the bills, but an obsession with productivity is unhealthy. When you can’t get yourself to be productive, relax. Let go of the need to be hyperefficient. Stop feeling guilty about enjoying yourself.

But what if I can’t motivate myself … ever?

So, here’s the “productivity paradox”.

Relax. Enjoy yourself. You’ll  be happier.  If you work when you become inspired, on things you’re excited about, and create amazing things, that’s motivation. Not forcing yourself to work when you don’t want to, on things you don’t want to work on — well, that leaves a void, a space where creativity can grow and that’s exciting, and that’s when you become motivated– and work.

Motivation is doing things you love, but only as long as you really want to.

This is how I work every day. I work on a lot of projects, on things I really care about, with people I enjoy working with.

Simply put, there is too much emphasis these days on productivity, on hyper-efficiency, on squeezing the most production out of every last minute.

People have forgotten how to relax. How to be lazy. How to enjoy life… how to take care. Perhaps worst of all, they, they have fooled themselves into thinking they don’t have time to relax and take care of themselves because doing so is not productive.

Try this: read some of the best books, magazines and blogs on productivity, and see how many will tell you how to get the most out of the time you spend waiting, how to maximize your energy, how to make use of your commute time, how to make every meeting more effective, how to get more out of your workday, how to crank out more widgets.

People are working longer hours, constantly checking their inboxes, constantly focused on Getting More Done.

But to what end?

Are we producing more in order to make more money for corporations? Or to make more money for ourselves? Or just to hold on to our jobs — jobs we might not like anyway?

It is possible we’re trying to get more done because we love doing it — and if that’s the case, that’s wonderful. But even then, working long hours and neglecting the rest of life isn’t always the best idea. Sometimes it’s good to get less done, to relax, to breathe.

Positive thinking, and the art and practice of it is not only misunderstood, but fairly overrated as well. Simply thinking “positively” without first taking inventory of your habits, your thinking, your energy and behavior, is like trying to plant a garden over a sea of weeds. Planting your garden, without first ridding your soil of unwanted weeds– life that does not fit you, serve you, or that you want, just doesn’t work. There is no room for the new garden until you have faced your current plot of land with honest eyes, cleaned out the rubbish and made space.

Negative talk and negative self-talk are the first pieces of rubbish that need to go.

I wish I had a dime for every time I heard someone making a negative comment about me, about others, about themselves. That last is really the worst. I could retire on those dimes.

The thing is, before making life better with positive thinking and imaging, we have to spot our negative thinking habits.

Negative thinking, in all its many splendid forms, has a way of creeping into conversations and our thinking without our noticing them. The key to successfully making core changes in your way of thinking  is learning to spot these thoughts and pull them out by the roots. Then replace them with positive ones. You’ll notice a huge difference in everything you do.

As the Dalai Lama said, “The way to overcome negative thoughts and destructive emotions is to develop opposing, positive emotions that are stronger and more powerful.”

Let’s take a look at 10 common ways that negative thinking emerges (there are many more, of course) — get good at spotting these patterns, and practice replacing them with positive thinking patterns. Shifting your thinking

10 Deadly Sins of Negative Self-Talk

1. I will be happy once I have _____ (or once I earn $X).

Problem: If you think you can’t be happy until you reach a certain point, or until you reach a certain income, or have a certain type of house or car or computer setup, you’ll never be happy. That elusive goal is always just out of reach. Once we reach those goals, we are not satisfied — we want more.

Solution: Learn to be happy with what you have, where you are, and who you are, right at this moment. Happiness doesn’t have to be some state that we want to get to eventually — it can be found right now. Learn to count your blessings, and see the positive in your situation. This might sound simplistic, but it works.
2. I wish I were as ____ as (a celebrity, friend, co-worker).

Problem: We’ll never be as pretty, as talented, as rich, as sculpted, as cool, as everyone else. There will always be someone better, if you look hard enough. Therefore, if we compare ourselves to others like this, we will always pale, and will always fail, and will always feel bad about ourselves. This is no way to be happy.

Solution: Stop comparing yourself to others, and look instead at yourself — what are your strengths, your accomplishments, your successes, however small? What do you love about yourself? Learn to love who you are, right now, not who you want to become. There is good in each of us, love in each of us, and a wonderful human spirit in every one of us.

3. Seeing others becoming successful makes me jealous and resentful.

Problem: First, this assumes that only a small number of people can be successful. In truth, many, many people can be successful — in different ways.

Solution: Learn to admire the success of others, and learn from it, and be happy for them, by empathizing with them and understanding what it must be like to be them. And then turn away from them, and look at yourself — you can be successful too, in whatever you choose to do. And even more, you already are successful. Look not at those above you in the social ladder, but those below you — there are always millions of people worse off than you, people who couldn’t even read this article or afford a computer. In that light, you are a huge success.

4. I am a miserable failure — I can’t seem to do anything right.

Problem: Everyone is a failure, if you look at it in certain ways. Everyone has failed, many times, at different things. I have certainly failed so many times I cannot count them — and I continue to fail, daily. However, looking at your failures as failures only makes you feel bad about yourself. By thinking in this way, we will have a negative self-image and never move on from here.

Solution: See your successes and ignore your failures. Look back on your life, in the last month, or year, or 5 years. And try to remember your successes. If you have trouble with this, start documenting them — keep a success journal, either in a notebook or online. Document your success each day, or each week. When you look back at what you’ve accomplished, over a year, you will be amazed. It’s an incredibly positive feeling.

5. I’m going to beat so-and-so no matter what — I’m better than him. And there’s no way I’ll help him succeed — he might beat me.

Problem: Competitiveness assumes that there is a small amount of gold to be had, and I need to get it before he does. It makes us into greedy, back-stabbing, hurtful people. We try to claw our way over people to get to success, because of our competitive feelings. For example, if a blogger wants to have more subscribers than another blogger, he may never link to or mention that other blogger. However, who is to say that my subscribers can’t also be yours? People can read and subscribe to more than one blog.

Solution: Learn to see success as something that can be shared, and learn that if we help each other out, we can each have a better chance to be successful. Two people working towards a common goal are better than two people trying to beat each other up to get to that goal. There is more than enough success to go around. Learn to think in terms of abundance rather than scarcity.

6. Dammit! Why do these bad things always happen to me?

Problem: Bad things happen to everybody. If we dwell on them, they will frustrate us and bring us down.

Solution: See bad things as a part of the ebb and flow of life. Suffering is a part of the human condition — but it passes. All pain goes away, eventually. Meanwhile, don’t let it hold you back. Don’t dwell on bad things, but look forward towards something good in your future. And learn to take the bad things in stride, and learn from them. Bad things are actually opportunities to grow and learn and get stronger, in disguise.

7. You can’t do anything right! Why can’t you be like Johnny?

Problem: This can be said to your child or your subordinate or your sibling. The problem? Comparing two people, first of all, is always a fallacy. People are different, with different ways of doing things, different strengths and weaknesses, different human characteristics. If we were all the same, we’d be robots. Second, saying negative things like this to another person never helps the situation. It might make you feel better, and more powerful, but in truth, it hurts your relationship, it will actually make you feel negative, and it will certainly make the other person feel negative and more likely to continue negative behavior. Everyone loses.

Solution: Take the mistakes or bad behavior of others as an opportunity to teach. Show them how to do something. Second, praise them for their positive behavior, and encourage their success. Last, and most important, love them for who they are, and celebrate their differences.

8. Your blog sucks. It’s super lame. You should stop writing, because you’re a moron and I hope you never reproduce.

Problem: I’ve actually gotten this comment before. It feels wonderful. However, let’s look at it not from the perspective of the person receiving this kind of comment (whether it’s on a blog or anywhere else) but from the perspective of the person giving it. How does saying something negative like this help you? I guess it might feel good to vent if you feel like your time has been wasted. But really, how much of your time has been wasted? A few minutes? And whose fault is that? The bloggers or yours? There are a million lousy blogs out there — you chose to come to this one, and you are responsible for your own actions and their consequences. In truth, making negative comments just keeps you in a negative mindset, and certainly doesn’t help the blogger. It’s also not a good way to make friends.

Solution: Learn to offer constructive solutions, first of all. Instead of telling someone their blog sucks, or that a post is lame, offer some specific suggestions for improvement. Help them get better. If you are going to take the time to make a comment, make it worth your time. Second, learn to interact with people in a more positive way — it makes others feel good and it makes you feel better about yourself. And you can make some great friends this way. That’s a good thing.

9. Oh yeah? Well up yours too!

Problem: If someone insults you or angers you in some way, insulting them back and continuing your anger only transfers their problem to you. This person was probably having a bad day (or a bad year) and took it out on you for some reason. If you reciprocate, you are now having a bad day too. His problem has become yours. Not only that, but the cycle of insults can get worse and worse until it results in violence or other negative consequences — for both of you.

Solution: Let the insults or negative comments of others slide off you like Teflon. Don’t let their problem become yours. In fact, try to understand their problem more — why would someone say something like that? What problems are they going through? Having a little empathy for someone not only makes you understand that their comment is not about you, but it can make you feel and act in a positive manner towards them — and make you feel better about yourself in the process.

10. I don’t think I can do this — I don’t have enough discipline. Maybe some other time.

Problem: If you don’t think you can do something, you probably won’t. Especially for the big stuff. Discipline has nothing to do with it — motivation and focus has everything to do with it. And if you put stuff off for “some other time”, you’ll never get it done. Negative thinking like this inhibits us from accomplishing anything.

Solution: Turn your thinking around: you can do this! You don’t need discipline. Find ways to make yourself a success at your goal. If you fail, learn from your mistakes, and try again. Instead of putting a goal off for later, start now. And focus on one goal at a time, putting all of your energy into it, and getting as much help from others as you can. You can really move mountains if you start with positive thinking.

An inbox that is overflowing with actions, urgent calls for responses, stuff to read … it’s chaos, it’s stressful, it’s overwhelming.

A friend recently posted:

“Help! I’m drowning in email!”

Let’s look at how to get your head above water first, and then how to get safely to dry land.

Head Above Water
You need to give yourself some breathing room. A flooded inbox is overwhelming, and you don’t know where to start. So here’s where we’re going to start:

1. Create an “actions” folder or label in your email. This is where you’re going to store any emails that you need to take action on (other than just replying or filing or whatever).
2. Pick the most important. Go through your inbox and check off 10-15 that are the most urgent action emails, and file them in this new folder. If you don’t get to the sections below right away, you can at least work from this folder for now.
3. Temporarily archive. Now create a “temp” folder. File everything that’s still in your inbox into this temp folder. Everything. You’re going to get these out of the way and not worry about them at the moment. We’ll get to these, but it gives you a little breathing room.
4. Set a new policy. Every new email that comes in will follow the rules in the next section. No more allowing your inbox to pile up.
New Emails
So what to do with new emails that come in? Set some rules, and commit right this minute to ruthlessly sticking to them:

1. Process from the top down. When you open up your email, process the inbox completely. Start with the top email in your inbox, and open it. Take one of the following actions, in this preferred order: (1) delete (use this liberally), (2) archive (in case you want to look it up later), (3) quick reply (four sentences or less) and then archive, (4) put on your to-do list for action (if you don’t have a list, start one now) and then file in your “action” folder. This last item includes long replies (which should be as rare as possible). If you take one of these four actions, you should dispose of every email.
2. Go to the next email and take quick action, and so forth. Don’t spend longer than 20 seconds on any one email, and even then you should only do that if you’re doing a quick reply or adding the item to your to-do list. If you process this quickly, you’ll be done with your inbox in minutes.
3. Only when you’ve processed should you start worrying about the to-do items. You can choose to do those now, or later. Don’t start doing the to-do items when you’re processing.
4. Newsletters, etc. You’re never going to read all those newsletters, notices from services, catalogs from companies, and so on that regularly get delivered from your inbox. So go into your “temp” folder and delete all of them right now. All of them. And whenever new ones come in — emails that are not from real people directed just for you — you’re going to go to the bottom of the email and click on the “unsubscribe” link. Every single one of them should have an “unsubscribe” link — if not, mark as spam. It only takes 10 seconds to click on the unsubscribe link and then go to the new page and hit the unsubscribe button. And if you do this for every single one, you’ll soon get a lot less email.

Follow these four rules and you’ll never have a full inbox again.

Stop the Flood
OK, things should feel a bit more manageable now. Now we want to set some long-term policies so that you get fewer emails from now on.

Here’s what to do:

1. Unsubscribe from everything. This was talked about in the section above, but just in case you missed that, go back and read the newsletters item. You don’t need newsletters flooding your inbox.
2. Stop sending so many emails. The more emails you send, the more you’ll get. Use email as little as you possibly can. Call people if you can, or walk over and talk to them. If those aren’t possible, see if you can figure it out for yourself. If you send an email that doesn’t require a response, say so.
3. Send shorter emails. They’re more likely to get read and acted on, and it’ll take less of your time to write them. Try sticking to 4 sentences or fewer.
4. Check email less often. Set times each day, and only check email on those times. When you do, process your inbox to empty using the rules above.
5. Filter out notifications. If there are notifications you do want to see, create a folder or label for them, and create a filter (Gmail is great for this) so that the notifications go straight to that label/folder and skip the inbox.
6. Set policies. Put up policies on your website or send the policies out to the people you work with. These policies should be aimed at reducing the number of requests you get. For example, if requests are coming to you that should be going somewhere else, put that in your policies. If people should deal with things through a different channel than email, say it in the policies. Try to figure out your most common types of emails, and find solutions so you don’t have to respond to all of them.
7. Post FAQs. Similarly, if you get a bunch of questions regularly, post the answers publicly so that you don’t have to repeatedly answer them by email. It’ll save you a lot of time.

Processing the Old Emails
You’re going to want to return to your “temp” folder, when you have the time, and start processing it. Some steps:

1. Process it in chunks if there are too many to do now. Just do it for 5 minutes and then come back later.
2. When you process, follow the rules for processing your inbox above (under the “New Emails” section). Start at the top, take quick action on each email, moving it out of the temp folder as fast as you can.
3. Feel free to mass delete emails. If you know you’ll never reply or act on emails, just check a bunch of them off and delete or archive. You can get big chunks done at once this way. Give yourself the freedom to let these go — and just worry about what you need to do from this point on.

The idea of having concrete, achievable goals seem to be deeply ingrained in our culture. I know I lived with goals for many years, and in fact a big part of my writings here on Zen Habits are about how to set and achieve goals.

These days, however, I live without goals, for the most part. It’s absolutely liberating, and contrary to what you might have been taught, it absolutely doesn’t mean you stop achieving things.

It means you stop letting yourself be limited by goals.

Consider this common belief: “You’ll never get anywhere unless you know where you’re going.” This seems so commonsensical, and yet it’s obviously not true if you stop to think about it. Conduct a simple experiment: go outside and walk in a random direction, and feel free to change directions randomly. After 20 minutes, an hour … you’ll be somewhere! It’s just that you didn’t know you were going to end up there.

And there’s the rub: you have to open your mind to going places you never expected to go. If you live without goals, you’ll explore new territory. You’ll learn some unexpected things. You’ll end up in surprising places. That’s the beauty of this philosophy, but it’s also a difficult transition.

Today, I live mostly without goals. Now and then I start coming up with a goal, but I’m letting them go. Living without goals hasn’t ever been an actual goal of mine … it’s just something I’m learning that I enjoy more, that is incredibly freeing, that works with the lifestyle of following my passion that I’ve developed.
The problem with goals

In the past, I’d set a goal or three for the year, and then sub-goals for each month. Then I’d figure out what action steps to take each week and each day, and try to focus my day on those steps.

Unfortunately, it never, ever works out this neatly. You all know this. You know you need to work on an action step, and you try to keep the end goal in mind to motivate yourself. But this action step might be something you dread, and so you procrastinate. You do other work, or you check email or Facebook, or you goof off.

And so your weekly goals and monthly goals get pushed back or side-tracked, and you get discouraged because you have no discipline. And goals are too hard to achieve. So now what? Well, you review your goals and reset them. You create a new set of sub-goals and action plans. You know where you’re going, because you have goals!

Of course, you don’t actually end up getting there. Sometimes you achieve the goal and then you feel amazing. But most of the time you don’t achieve them and you blame it on yourself.

Here’s the secret: the problem isn’t you, it’s the system! Goals as a system are set up for failure.

Even when you do things exactly right, it’s not ideal. Here’s why: you are extremely limited in your actions. When you don’t feel like doing something, you have to force yourself to do it. Your path is chosen, so you don’t have room to explore new territory. You have to follow the plan, even when you’re passionate about something else.

Some goal systems are more flexible, but nothing is as flexible as having no goals.
How it works

So what does a life without goals look like? In practice, it’s very different than one with goals.

You don’t set a goal for the year, nor for the month, nor for the week or day. You don’t obsess about tracking, or actionable steps. You don’t even need a to-do list, though it doesn’t hurt to write down reminders if you like.

What do you do, then? Lay around on the couch all day, sleeping and watching TV and eating Ho-Hos? No, you simply do. You find something you’re passionate about, and do it. Just because you don’t have goals doesn’t mean you do nothing — you can create, you can produce, you can follow your passion.

And in practice, this is a wonderful thing: you wake up and do what you’re passionate about. For me, that’s usually blogging, but it can be writing a novel or an ebook or my next book or creating a course to help others or connecting with incredible people or spending time with my wife or playing with my kids. There’s no limit, because I’m free.

In the end, I usually end up achieving more than if I had goals, because I’m always doing something I’m excited about. But whether I achieve or not isn’t the point at all: all that matters is that I’m doing what I love, always.

I end up in places that are wonderful, surprising, great. I just didn’t know I would get there when I started.
Quick questions

Question from a reader: Isn’t having no goals a goal?

Quick answer: It can be a goal, or you can learn to do it along the journey, by exploring new methods. I’m always learning new things (like having no goals) without setting out to learn them in the first place.

Another question from a reader: So how do you make a living?

Answer: Passionately! Again, not having goals doesn’t mean you stop doing things. In fact, I do many things, all the time, but I do them because I love doing them.
Tips for living without goals

I am not going to give you a how-to manual for living without goals — that would be absurd. I can’t teach you what to do — you need to find your own path.

But I can share some things I’ve learned, in hopes that it will help you:

* Start small. You don’t need to drastically overhaul your life in order to learn to live without goals. Just go a few hours without predetermined goals or actions. Follow your passion for those hours. Even an hour will do.
* Grow. As you get better at this, start allowing yourself to be free for longer periods — half a day or a whole day or several days. Eventually you’ll feel confident enough to give up on certain goals and just do what you love.
* Not just work. Giving up goals works in any area of your life. Take health and fitness: I used to have specific fitness goals, from losing weight or body fat to running a marathon to increasing my squat. Not anymore: now I just do it because I love it, and I have no idea where that will take me. It works brilliantly, because I always enjoy myself.
* Let go of plans. Plans are not really different than goals. They set you on a predetermined path. But it’s incredibly difficult to let go of living with plans, especially if you’re a meticulous planner like I am. So allow yourself to plan, when you feel you need to, but slowly feel free to let go of this habit.
* Don’t worry about mistakes. If you start setting goals, that’s OK. There are no mistakes on this journey — it’s just a learning experience. If you live without goals and end up failing, as yourself if it’s really a failure. You only fail if you don’t get to where you wanted to go — but if you don’t have a destination in mind, there’s no failure.
* It’s all good. No matter what path you find, no matter where you end up, it’s beautiful. There is no bad path, no bad destination. It’s only different, and different is wonderful. Don’t judge, but experience.

And finally…

Always remember: the journey is all. The destination is beside the point.

‘A good traveller has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving.’ ~Lao Tzu

Janet was asking me about “this NLP stuff” (as she called it) and how she could apply some of the principles to her business in order to increase sales.

Needless to say…

Our “30-minute lunch” quickly became a 3 1/2 hour NLP lesson on how she could make a few small adjustments and increase her number of clients without spending any money on advertising or doing much extra work.

I wish I would have recorded our conversation because she asked question after question and we were able
to free flow some really good ideas that she has already started to implement in his business.

Of course, this got me thinking…

If my friend (who regularly attends world-class sales trainings) got this much value out of applying a few simple NLP principles, so will A LOT of other business owners and sales professionals.

Over the next few weeks I’d love to share some NLP sales-increasing ideas with my blog readers, AND I want to make sure that this topic is something you are really interested in.

If you do want to learn more on how to use NLP to grow your business then take a few minutes
to tell me about your situation and give me some input on what you would like to learn. Email directly at mail@carmenisais.com.

Looking forward to hearing from you!