Working with 150+ coaching clients in the first half of 2020, I noticed a couple of patterns.
And when you work with so many people, privately, in such a short time, you start designing a generalized solution following which most of their issues would be resolved.
We feel our problems are unique, that it’s only happening to us.
The chances are, whatever you are going through right now, millions of other people probably would be undergoing the same troubles.
I have tried these methods with my private coaching clients, so it’s proven to be working.
Here are the 6 Powerful Practices to Make 90% of Your Life Problems Disappear:
- Seek Alignment
- Realise it’s your race
- Practice Stoicism
- Follow Your Breath
- Execute Essentialism
- Practice Law of Attraction
Seek Alignment
Most of us work and keep moving without knowing where we are heading. Having a clear direction helps to prioritise our problems.
If you know I want to go in this X to Y direction, the problems that are happening on A to B direction will become irrelevant to me.
We sometimes date people desperately without checking if our core values and love languages align with our potent partners.
I once dated a girl whose love language is touch. She expresses her love with “touch”, aka hugs, cuddles, handholding, etc.
My love language is quality time. I like to spend time with others. Just being there. Probably not even doing anything. Or doing typical random day things like eating and cooking and watching Netflix. But I also do seek my personal space.
The issue was, whenever we were together, she used to always seek touch, handholding, hugging, etc., and I felt like she’s intruding too much of my personal space. Our love languages and core values didn’t align.
And we were too young to figure out why aren’t we happy together.
The same goes for any career. If my core value is quality family time, and I am working in a job where I have to travel for five days a week, I would probably not be happy in my life because my core values and my job don’t align with each other.
Alignment can resolve so many issues of your life.
Seek alignment in
- Your and your partner’s core values and love languages
- Your life purpose and your career goals
- Your thoughts, actions, and emotions
How can you practice alignment?
Well, design an imaginary compass for your life. Be self-aware of who you are, what are your core values, your standards and expectations, etc.
Set this imaginary compass in the direction of your life purpose. Deliberately choose your decisions from here.
Whenever you need to decide anything, like dating someone, or a career opportunity, put in on this imaginary compass, and see if it aligns with your life purpose and core values.
If it does, go on and get it. If it doesn’t, just let it go.
Realize It’s Your Race
This has been proven as a successful anecdote with most of my coaching clients.
We often compare ourselves with others, undermining our journey. We get upset when we don’t get results as fast as someone else is getting.
But all of the “comparison” gets vanished when we realize it’s our race we are running.
I often tell my clients, this is my race I am running. I am the judge here. I am the runner too.
There’s nobody else in the crowd but me.
I will decide when to start and when to finish.
It’s my choice if I want to take a short break in between the race.
Only I can decide which direction I want to run, and which lane I’d pick.
When you see life as your own race, you will not compare yourself with anyone else. And that my friend will be your victory #1 over yourself.
Practice Stoicism
Out of all the philosophies I read and practised, this one’s the most practical with a problem-solving approach.
If anyone is undergoing a phase of victim mentality, practising Stoicism can be a good start to get out of it.
Check this 2 line prayer stoics usually repeat:
ta eph’hemin, ta ouk eph’hemin
It translates to “what’s up to us, what’s not up to us.”
Here is how you can begin practising Stoicism right away.
Before stressing over any issue, ask yourself:
- Can I control this? If yes, why am I not doing it already?
- If I can’t control this, why am I worried?
The philosophy goes deeper than this one part.
Epictetus (a former stoic philosopher) said that it’s not what happened to you, but how you react, that matters.
Lionel Messi was diagnosed with a growth hormone deficiency as a child.
Whatever happened to him as a child, didn’t stop him from being one of the best soccer players of today’s time.
What’s your story?
What’s stopping you from achieving greatness?
Here’s everything you need to know about stoicism.
Follow Your Breath
This is the only constant of our lives — our breath.
There’s even a joke about it. Our life is only for 2 minutes each. We keep ourselves alive by keep breathing.
We breathe in different ways when we are happy, sad, excited, worried. Each of these emotions accounts for different breaths.
Whenever there’s an issue, whenever there’s any worry, whenever there’s anxiety, ONE practice can save you in all the situations — follow your breath.
Bring your breath back to normal. Try taking deep and slow breaths if you’re feeling anxious.
Regular meditation for a couple of minutes every day helps a lot in mastering your breath.
Execute Essentialism
TLDR; Focus on only the essential problems.
The book “Essentialism” by Greg McKeown says —
There are three deeply entrenched assumptions we must conquer to live the way of the Essentialist: ‘I have to,’ ‘It’s all-important,’ and ‘I can do both.’
To embrace the essence of Essentialism requires we replace these false assumptions with three core truths: “I choose to,” “Only a few things really matter,” and “I can do anything but not everything.”
When we ruthlessly prioritise what’s important to us, most of our problems become irrelevant. And that’s the goal, isn’t it?
To only spend time on the problems that truly matter to us.
Listen to Elon Musk speaking about this on Joe Rogan Experience podcast #1470 (Youtube link)
Context: Joe Rogan asked him about the design of his dream house.
Elon Musk replied he would instead focus on sending people on Mars because that’s more important for him, rather than spending energy on designing a perfect home.
Practice Law of Attraction
The law of attractions says we attract everything in our lives, whatever we focus on.
In any given moment we are choosing — do I feel bad about not having a MacBook, or do I feel good about having a Dell laptop?
How would you focus on what makes you feel good v/s what doesn’t make you feel good?
Visualization is one of the most widely followed ways of practising the law of attraction.
Imagine how an average day would feel in your dream life?
Be specific. You can perform this visualisation exercise via journaling or meditation.
The more specific you are, the more overlapping your reality and dreams will start getting.
Involve all of your senses while visualising.
How does an average day in your dream life look like?
What are you eating on an average day of your dream life?
How is your home smelling like?
Visualisation is a powerful activity. Someone who has deliberately practised it will know the impact.
Summary
The goal of these six practices is to provide you with clarity, so most of the unimportant problems become irrelevant to you.
Here are these six practices in a nutshell —
- Seek alignment. Whatever does not align with your mission, purpose, and goals- ignore that decision and problem altogether.
- Realise it’s your race. You are the runner, judge, and even the audience in your race. Only you get to decide when do you want to start this, how do you want to end it, and how many times do you want to take breaks. This one mindset shift will empower you to the core.
- Practice stoicism. Be objective in your decisions and actions. Ask yourself, why are you doing whatever you are doing, and if it’s even worth doing in the first place.
- Follow your breath. Pause. Reflect. Be still. That’s it. Deliberately following your breath will help you gain clarity and focus.
- Execute Essentialism. Be ruthless in choosing which problems you want to deal with. To embrace the essence of Essentialism requires us to follow the three core truths: “I choose to,” “Only a few things matter,” and “I can do anything but not everything.”
- Practice the Law of Attraction. Visualise your dream life. Attract all the solutions in your life. Involve all of your senses when you are visualising.
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