Whatever Works Podcast

Find Your Moral Compass

An internal sense of values provides clarity and meaning in your life. A strong moral framework gives you a foundation you can refer to whenever you need to make a decision. The consequences of your behavior may not always unfold as you would wish, but that’s okay. Whatever the outcome, knowing that you’ve acted in accordance with your moral compass can bring you a sense of peace.

Everyday Mindfulness

Extend your awareness practice beyond the meditation cushion. Meditation doesn’t have to be done sitting still with your eyes closed in a silent room. The goal of practicing is to be more aware in your daily life. To this end, bringing a meditative mindset to a variety of situations can be helpful. Sometimes, you can add more mindful minutes to your day by splicing meditation into activities you are already doing, like walking, eating, or even doing the dishes.

Find Your Purpose

In the midst of our everyday lives and responsibilities, it’s all too easy to get mired in busy work and lose sight of what’s important to us. After living like a hamster on a wheel for a while, we begin to feel empty or directionless. We may be unsure what to do with our lives or struggle to feel a sense of meaning. In such times, actively working to define your purpose can help.

Allow Yourself to be Bored

When we catch ourselves feeling bored, it’s easy to conclude that we are doing something wrong and immediately alter our behavior. We may decide that we should work more, get some exercise, or put together a grocery list. Alternatively, we may feel a powerful urge to scroll through social media or slump in front of the TV. Another way to look at boredom, however, is that it may be an indication that we are not fully present. If we refrain from attempting to fix our boredom and instead observe it, we can learn the lessons it has to teach us.

Be with Your Emotions

Few of us are comfortable truly feeling our emotions. We find ways to ignore them, distract ourselves from them, or displace them. This can make us prone to negative behavior such as outbursts of anger or social withdrawal, emotional eating, or excessive social media use. All these behaviors are rooted in an effort to numb our feelings or distract ourselves from them.

Follow Up After Meeting New People

After meeting someone new, bolster the connection with a message. If you have an active social or business life, you likely meet new people you would like to see again, whether at parties, networking events, conferences, or in other circumstances. Even if you don’t yet have a specific plan in mind, a message lets them know that you would like to maintain and develop some sort of connection with them.

Express Your Emotions Numerically

Expressing your emotions numerically is a way to calibrate and communicate the intensity of your emotions. It's as simple as a scale from one to ten. This can help you communicate your emotional state more accurately and give others useful information about how to interact with you.

Talk to Your Inner Selves

We all have parts of ourselves that we keep stuffed deep inside. If we don’t acknowledge these different facets of ourselves, they will only become more powerful. When we are tired, scared, or otherwise low on resources, these parts can dictate how we think, speak, and act. This may mean we say things we don’t intend or behave in ways that hurt ourselves or others. By getting in touch with these inner shadow selves and integrating them, we can gain better control of our lives.

Nonviolent Communication

Nonviolent Communication (NVC), created by Dr. Marshall Rosenberg, is an approach to relationships that views feelings and needs as the basic drivers of all human behavior. It encourages us to move away from automatic patterns of behavior to get what we want and instead connect first on the level of feelings and needs. Connecting in this way can open us up to new options and enable us to act in ways that will better meet everyone’s needs, as well as build more harmonious relationships.

Write Book Reviews

If you want to remember what you learned in a book, writing a book review is an excellent way to reinforce your memory. If you take just a few minutes to record what you have read after you finish a book, you will find you have a better understanding and recall of the material at a later date. You don’t have to publish your review anywhere—the process is useful even if you don’t.