Apply Gandhi’s formula (beliefs become thoughts, thoughts become words, etc., leading to destiny) to consciously transform your life. Identify and change limiting belief systems to alter your thoughts, words, actions, habits, and values, thereby shaping your destiny.
Adopt a belief that the universe is friendly, rather than unfriendly, to align yourself with natural laws and use your resources for positive creation. This shift helps you focus on what can work and play out positive scenarios in your mind.
Use mindfulness to create a space between a stimulus and your immediate reaction, allowing you to pause and choose a skillful response. This practice helps you avoid knee-jerk, mindless reactions and enables learning from your choices.
See yourself as a masterpiece that already exists, and use practices like meditation to ‘chip away’ at what obscures it. Turn within and listen to your ‘still, small voice’ to access an inner consciousness that knows your inherent potential.
Cultivate the ability to access your inner quiet place, the ’eye of the hurricane,’ even when surrounded by turmoil. Do this by being fully present in the moment, allowing experiences to speak to you, and approaching them with curiosity to transform your relationship with them.
To tap into your natural intuition and allow your body to perform skillfully, quiet the conscious, overthinking mind. Instead of trying to control or stop thoughts, create space for them to exist without identification, allowing your innate knowing to emerge.
When confronted with problems, focus on repairing the underlying foundation rather than merely addressing surface-level symptoms. Understand that foundational work requires patience and time but leads to more sustainable and transformative change.
Achieve a state of ‘flow’ or ’the zone’ not by trying to force it, but by consistently practicing mindfulness to be present from moment to moment. This continuous awareness creates the necessary conditions to become ‘flow ready’.
To foster growth and enter a state of flow, intentionally push yourself slightly beyond your comfort zone. When challenges are high and skills are high, embrace the resulting high state of arousal with relaxed receptivity instead of withdrawing.
Promote optimum brain growth by ensuring high oxygen levels, practicing in small, manageable increments, engaging in tasks that are doable but challenging, and approaching activities with genuine interest to stimulate motivational circuits.
Develop a deeper understanding by combining mindfulness (awareness of the present moment) with wisdom (intelligence that helps you understand what you’re looking for and what you’re getting). This integration leads to direct experience and intuitive knowing, the highest form of wisdom.
Be cautious about identifying too strongly with labels, as they can create limitations. Instead, focus on who you are as a person and your current choices, rather than defining yourself by past struggles or specific roles.
To truly understand others, observe their actions and behavior more closely than their spoken words, as behavior often reveals true intentions and motivations, especially when words may be used to please or mislead.
Identify and change negative or self-critical beliefs that drive your inner voice and expectations. Actively replace these with beliefs that support your goals and positive outcomes, preventing negative scenarios from playing out in your mind.
Shift your source of motivation from internal anguish or fear to positive emotions such as love, joy, and compassion. This provides a more wholesome and sustainable energy for action and personal growth.
In any competitive endeavor, shift your focus from defeating opponents to continuously improving yourself, striving to be better today than you were yesterday. This internal focus empowers you and fosters a sense of accomplishment regardless of external results.
Consciously modify your inner dialogue to support your objectives, replacing self-critical thoughts with constructive observations. If you make a mistake, treat it as a data point for learning and improvement, rather than a cause for self-judgment.
Cultivate the ability to listen to both your own inner voice and others without judgment, simply noticing what is happening and learning from it. This requires vulnerability and a willingness to let things speak to you without immediate interpretation.
Exercise your free will by consciously choosing which thoughts to hold in your mind, and through an act of will, sustain wholesome thoughts longer. This practice allows you to intentionally shape your mental landscape and experience.
Actively foster mental themes like loving-kindness, compassion, and sympathetic joy in your daily life. For instance, instead of jealousy, appreciate an opponent’s success by acknowledging their effort and achievement, extending goodwill.
Understand that your inner life influences your perception of the world and that all human beings are fundamentally connected in their desire for happiness. Challenge judgmental thoughts by recognizing shared humanity and working to alleviate suffering.
Enhance long-term happiness by consciously interpreting your experiences through a lens of goodness, wisdom, generosity, and goodwill. Since 90% of happiness is based on brain interpretation, cultivating these attitudes can profoundly shift your well-being.
Practice ‘right effort’ by continuously applying poised and balanced energy to your endeavors, even when immediate results are not apparent. This sustained, calm effort is crucial for long-term transformation and progress.
Cultivate unconditional acceptance in various aspects of life, such as being a fan who supports their team regardless of wins or losses. This means enjoying the process and offering support without imposing conditions or demanding specific outcomes.
Focus your energy on effectively managing the current moment and doing your best in it, rather than fixating on future outcomes or complex formulas. This present-moment focus naturally influences and improves subsequent moments and days.
Broaden your understanding of mindfulness beyond formal meditation to encompass being fully present and focused in all activities. Apply the same passion and concentration you have for a beloved activity (’love of the game’) to every aspect of your life.
Contribute to the spread of mindfulness by actively embodying and modeling what it means to be more awake and present in your daily life. Even small, consistent improvements in your awareness can inspire and make a significant difference.
Adopt a continuous, 24/7 mindful awareness as your daily practice, constantly checking in with your body, breath, energy levels, and the perspective through which you’re experiencing each moment.
Combine formal meditation sessions (e.g., 10-45 minutes of sitting) with informal practices like qigong, tai chi, stretching, walking, journaling, and reading. View all these activities as interconnected parts of your overall practice of presence.
Continuously monitor your attitudes and perspectives, and if your mind is distracted or upset, turn towards that feeling with curiosity. Inquire deeply into the reasons for your concern or distraction to gain clarity and understanding.
In any situation, especially when facing self-doubt or external challenges, focus your energy on the two things you can always control: your attitude and your effort. This empowers you to act skillfully regardless of circumstances.
While aspiring to awakening or enlightenment, shift your focus to the journey itself and being ’enlightenment ready’ through consistent practice. Cultivate qualities like equanimity, compassion, and love, and strive to see things as they are without greed, hatred, or delusion.
Assess the progress of your meditation practice by evaluating the ‘five spiritual powers’: trust, wisdom, right effort (poised energy), mindfulness (continuity of awareness), and concentration.
Instead of identifying with pain or creating a story around it, observe it as a changing set of sensations (e.g., pulling, twisting) that arise and pass away. This practice creates space between you and the sensation, preventing identification and allowing for better management.
Counter chronic pain by focusing on the present moment, rather than re-running memories or past associations of pain. Mindfulness helps you distinguish between past experiences and current sensations, reducing the impact of the brain’s tendency to conflate thought and experience.
Intentionally slow down your perceptual process to create more space between a stimulus and your reaction. Take an extra moment to observe what is truly present, delaying the influx of associative thinking, self-reference, and judgment to gain clearer insight.
When you feel a migraine coming on, especially if you’ve been trying too hard or doing too many things, go lay down, breathe, and visualize your whole body breathing. This awareness and stillness can help manage the migraine before it becomes full-blown.
Learn to manage chronic pain by understanding the mind-body process, which includes modalities like stress reduction, meditation, mindfulness, and yoga. By being still and focusing on your breath or one thing, you can indirectly control involuntary bodily processes like heart rate and respiratory rate.
Practice being fully present and willing to experience the current moment as it unfolds, without needing to know what will happen next. This stillness in the unknown, even with unpleasant experiences, can transform your perception of them.