It is an incredible discovery when we realize that fun, joy, happiness and beauty are not simply enjoyable experiences but valuable sources of energy as well. They increase our energy when we activate them. We should increase our intake of these activities as much as possible, many times every day. Learning how to be creative and attentive and making fun, joy and beauty a priority in our life is easy once we realize their importance. There are many ways we can bring fun, joy and beauty into our lives and most of them don’t cost a cent. It’s simply attuning ourselves to what is already happening in our lives and harvesting fun, joy and happiness as a daily practice. In 2002 I wrote a book called The Practice of Happiness. I can’t tell you the number times in media interviews that I had to correct an interviewer when they confused the words pursuit and practice. They would usually start out with a statement like, “In your book the ‘Pursuit of Happiness’…” and I would correct them: “It’s not the pursuit of happiness. It’s the practice of happiness.” This Freudian slip happened time and time again even though they had the [...]

The inner battles that athletes wage within themselves are numerous. The fear of failure as well as the fear of success, are common. Each person deals with it in his or her own way. Canadian golf sensation Lorie Kane knows as well as anyone what this battle entails. "When I’m confident I move forward and when I’m not, I don’t." Sounds simple enough, but confidence and winning can be illusive in both sports and life. Lorie has first hand experience in this matter and her approach to finally winning her first LPGA (Ladies Professional Golf Association) tournament has lessons for all of us. In 1997, her first full year on the LPGA tour, her goal was simply to get experience and get better. She stood on the brink of victory four times that season. Two of her four second-place finishes came in agonizing sudden-death playoffs, but still she won U.S. $425,964, eleventh on the money list. A stellar first year. The questions began circulating amongst media and fellow players: When would she win? Did she have the right stuff? Was she tough enough? Did she have the will? After nine second-place finishes, she began to wonder herself. Here is where [...]

DROPPING PETTINESS FROM OUR LIVES A wonderful gift to ourselves and those whom we are close to is to make a decision to drop as much pettiness from our lives as we possibly can. A simple decision and promise to ourselves to try to not be petty can, as we implicate this new strategy, cause a radical change in our energy. Every thought and act of ours carries an energetic vibration, and when we act from authenticity, living up to our highest ideals, we gain real and noticeable benefits from this practice. Our vibration will always shift to match our thoughts, beliefs and actions, and as our vibration shifts so too does our entire relationship with life. This is how energy works in the universe. We are not separate and independent from our life; we are always and continuously interacting with it. Everything we do and think counts. So it is only logical to assume that when we indulge in pettiness with our thoughts, words or actions, it will have an effect on us, which of course it does. From a Mind Power perspective you would expect this. The vibration of pettiness, not surprisingly, keeps us small, limited and caught [...]

"Our spirits are offended if we think too much.” -Inuit shaman It is very valuable to become familiar with our ways of thinking and the routines of our mind. Our mind forms habits too, and many of them, we will discover, are not beneficial to us. For example, did you know the mind talks to itself almost constantly? Listen carefully and you will hear it. One of the first things we will notice when we begin stalking our mind is how our internal chatter keeps us prisoner in a fantasy world of its own creation. Stalking Internal Dialogue It was shocking for me the first time I discovered the nearly constant chatter going on inside me moment by moment. I thought I knew myself, but I didn’t know this about myself, but then I had never stalked myself before either. We have become so accustomed to our inner chatter that often we don’t even notice it. Like a constant hum from a refrigerator in the room, we adjust to the sound, get used to it and eventually don’t even hear it. Stalking the internal dialogue is like noticing for the first time the secret conversation going on within us. It [...]

These are stressful times for many people. The global financial meltdown, job insecurity, our investments decreasing in value, slow growth; we can understandingly feel depressed or anxious, and I haven’t even mentioned the daily media bombardment of negativity. What is one to do in these times? Well… why not be happy? Sounds paradoxical, but no, not at all. In fact in these unsettling times happiness can best be the best antidote to help us through it all. There is never a better time to be happy. But how can you be happy when all this is happening, you might ask. It’s simple—you choose happiness as a daily practice in your life, and then you practice it. Readers of this site probably know that I have written a book called The Practice of Happiness. The title reveals the approach I take to happiness. It is the “practice” of happiness, not the “pursuit” of happiness, that is the key. And there is a big difference between these two approaches. If you are pursing happiness in your life then you need your circumstances to be exactly as you want them in order to be happy. You need to be healthy, financially successful, in [...]

I recently sat down with performance coach Jim Murphy to discuss how athletes use the mind to attain peak performance. Jim has a long and successful career (almost twenty years) training top professional and Olympian athletes to get the very best out of themselves. I respect Jim for his knowledge, his ‘track’ record, and his integrity as an individual. He is presently working on a book, which will be published in the fall, and he has agreed to do a monthly topic for us at that time to further elaborate on his techniques for maximum effectiveness. Some of them will surprise you. We can learn valuable lessons from the world’s greatest athletes and apply these lessons in our own life with equal success. Become An Athlete of the Mind The physical practices will of course be different and sport appropriate, but the principles and practices of the mind are exactly the same for all top level achievers. “Peak performance has a few common characteristics,” says Jim. “Passion. Enjoyment. Heightened awareness. Getting caught up in the moment-to-moment focus. Full engagement. All top athletes have commonalities when they perform at their best: a clear mind and unburdened heart, a positive focused energy, [...]