Realize that the state of your mind is something you can change drastically, which is a powerful and empowering insight for personal transformation.
Understand that your mind’s default mode is joyful; quiet your mind and pay attention to uncover this inherent joy by deconstructing obstructions.
Focus on cultivating happiness, as it directly leads to greater success and effectiveness in various domains, including sales and leadership.
Do not feel bad about experiencing negative emotions, as this ‘meta-suffering’ (or ‘second arrow’) adds an unnecessary layer of suffering to your experience.
Practice a 15-second, three-breath exercise: first breath, collect attention on breathing; second, calm the body; third, invite joy, perhaps by smiling, to generate subtle and sustainable joy.
Cultivate loving kindness (Metta) by simply thinking, ‘I wish for this person to be happy,’ which is an intrinsically rewarding practice that generates joy.
Begin your meditation practice with a single mindful breath, bringing full attention to one in-breath and one out-breath, to immediately calm your body and free your mind from worry.
Understand that a deepening meditation practice reduces the number of perceived problems, makes resolvable problems easier to solve, and unresolvable problems more manageable.
Practice both actively cultivating and noticing joy, and also developing the ability to openly sit with and manage unpleasant experiences without being yanked around by them.
Actively pay attention to and notice subtle, brief moments of pleasantness and joy that occur throughout your day, such as the first sip of water or the feeling of hot water in the shower.
To sustain meditation, ‘front-load joy’ by emphasizing and cultivating pleasantness and joy from the very first breath, making the practice inherently more engaging and self-sustaining.
Ensure your mindfulness practice or teaching incorporates calmness and relaxation, insight and wisdom, and kindness and compassion for a comprehensive and pure approach.
Promote inner peace, joy, and compassion by demonstrating how they lead to success and profitability, making them an integrated and unavoidable outcome of emotional intelligence training.
To reach a broader audience, frame spiritual or meditative teachings using secular language and universal concepts like ‘Dharma’ (universal law), rather than specific religious terms.
Daily reflect on the five contemplations: being subject to aging, illness, death, separation from all you hold dear, and being the owner of your karma, to cultivate urgency and clarity for meaningful living.
Balance the urgency and discomfort (samvega) derived from contemplating impermanence with the practice of calmness, insight, wisdom, and kindness/compassion (pasada) to foster spiritual progress without falling into depression.
To start meditation, identify the ‘minimum effective dose’ – an amount that yields noticeable benefits without being overwhelming, preventing both ineffectiveness and burnout.
Understand that focusing fully on your breath physiologically slows it, stimulates the vagus nerve, and activates your body’s relaxation response, leading to immediate calm.
By bringing full attention to your breath, you are psychologically freed from worry (future) and regret (past) for the duration of that breath, offering immediate mental relief.
Adopt the strategy of top athletes by taking short (10-15 second) mental and physical rests between demanding tasks to maintain clarity and sustain high performance.
Sustain your practice by integrating ‘informal mindfulness’ into your daily life, such as being present during routine activities like taking the stairs instead of the elevator.
To sustain your meditation practice, find a buddy or join a community (even via an app) to create accountability and increase your likelihood of consistent engagement.
Practice Metta by mentally wishing for two random people to be happy, every hour on the hour, to significantly increase your daily joy.
Understand that extending a kind thought to another person is intrinsically and immediately rewarding, generating a direct sense of joy for the giver.
If you’re struggling to feel joy, try smiling, as the physical act of smiling can directly influence your emotions and help generate feelings of pleasantness.
Regularly tuning into and noticing joy familiarizes your mind with it, making joy feel like a reliable ‘best friend’ and inclining your mind towards a more joyful baseline.
Avoid gripping and straining during meditation; instead, try ’not doing anything’ to allow your mind to settle and access calm and joy.