Category: Present

Ways to be more mindful and live right where you are.

Respond, don’t give up ~

I envy the younger generation and their penchant to play video games. While it’s mostly guys that do this, girls also enjoy video games. Lots of different kinds of video games, although most of them tend to be about defeating the others in combat or fighting.
In these video games you battle your way through a whole host of opponents and you lose over and over and over. And in the video game while you may get upset and press really hard on the controller buttons or twist your thumb into shapes it was never meant to be in trying to defeat the digital enemy you tend not to give up. Even if you get so frustrated that losing again that you throw the controller on the floor you still pick it up and play again. You respond and you start back at a place close to where you let off and you try something different.
This is a skill that can be applied to real life! When you go for a job interview and you don’t get the job you don’t just give up – respond and go for another job interview. When you try something new or float an idea and people don’t like it you don’t just stop and crawl into a hole and disappear. Respond, don’t give up!
It goes along the lines of try and try again. Learn through failure, although nobody really enjoys doing that except scientists. And I don’t think they enjoyed it very much, either.
But don’t give up! One of the ways to be home unstoppable is to learn to respond no matter what the game is. Game on!

Get up by 9am ~

One of the trends that has gone on for many many years it is teenagers sleep until late in the morning. I even know of adults that have done that even up until their 50s. And adults that are older tend to sleep and even later.
While I understand the need for sleep, one of the rules that I made for my children as they were growing up was you have to be up and out of bed by 9 AM. Why? Because if you sleep later than that you can tend to stay up later and it just gets further and further out of sync with the world around you. You tend to stay up until two or three in the morning because it feels like since no one is around you have some control and you get to do what you want to do instead of what others want to do. Then by sleeping in you don’t have to listen to people asking you questions about what you’re doing today or put up with any weird expectations actually do chores or stuff around the house.
Getting up at 9 AM allows you to actually participate in the morning with friends and family. And it helps you keep your circadian rhythm in sync with the daytime hours at nighttime hours. When you get up at 9 AM you tend to get tired around 10:51 PM and while you may stay up later you tend to fall asleep and sleep better because you’re tired.
One of the unstoppable skills then is to get up by 9 AM every day. Weekends included. Earlier than that is better, but if you have nothing else going on and no appointments getting up by 9 AM allows you to participate in the day rather than lose half the day and have to spend time making excuses and recover the rest of the day and week.
So set your alarm! Get up and get moving so that you can accomplish things and become unstoppable.