Is Your Happiness Beyond the Event Horizon?

We don't have cable TV but we do have a Roku and one of the channels on Roku is Ted:Ideas Worth Spreading. I love being able to watch Ted talks on my TV instead of my computer because it makes it seem like there is actually something worth watching on television. They always cheer me up and inspire me, and I try to watch at least one a week. I guess I love it so much because one of the things that creates the most happiness in my life is learning.
Anyway, I watched this Ted Talk today. It may be the funniest one I've ever seen and has some great lessons to teach, too:


Some take-home points:
Researchers use and manipulate numbers in a way that leads to science that only concerns itself with the average. As someone who makes a living in the fitness industry it's especially important for me to remember that many scientists don't like outliers. In practice I should treat EVERYONE as an outlier and avoid treating all my clients as average or representational.  If I treat clients like the sciences treat research subjects, my clients would all be average and so would I.

The main subject of the talk, however, is happiness and success.  Our culture thinks of happiness as something that comes from success but in fact the opposite is true. Success comes from happiness (which he describes as positive outlook). Consider this quote about the science of happiness:

"90% of your long term happiness is predicted not by the external world but the way your brain processes the world".

Additionally, success is determined not by intelligence but by positive outlook and whether you see hardships as challenges to rise to or just bad luck. Have you ever found yourself or someone else saying "Knowing my luck..." or "It's just my luck"? I hate it when I hear people say that, because it is a window into their own negative view of the world rather than a reflection of the real world around them. It's so sad and fatalistic, and there is NO WAY to be happy and successful if that frame of reference exists in you. When I hear someone use that language, there is one thing I know for sure: no matter what successes that person experiences, he will never be happy. He will always be looking for a future success to raise his level of happiness rather than finding happiness in his current condition. His happiness is beyond the vent horizon and will always be out of reach.

The good news is the talk also outlines what you can do in just 21 days to re-wire your brain to make you more optimistic and hence happier and more successful:

• Exercise
• journal one positive experience every day
• gratitude list with three new items per day
• meditiation
• writing one positive email or thank you card (or other act of random kindness) per day

The point here is that doing this for 21 days changes the way your brain works and teaches it to automatically look for the positive in the world instead of the negative. I've done the gratitude list, journaling, exercise, and random acts things before, as I am sure many of you have. But have you done it every day for 21 days? I'm going to do one of these every day for the next 21 days as a refresher and to remind myself that my life is full of blessings and successes. Why don't you join me and we'll see how we feel in 21 days!

Does Facebook Make You Feel Better?

I just read this awesome blog post about Pinterest and it really resonated with me. So much of our time on the internet is spent bearing witness to the ways other people frame their personal reality. In general I find social media outlets to be "places" where you get a version of people that is merely a composition, a story based on real life. People compose their lives and their stories to appear a certain way to observers. We modify what we say (at least those with manners do) so as to not offend, or perhaps we share ideological perspectives to excess without any care at all of the mixed company that is witness, or perhaps we only broadcast the TV version of our lives that make it look like we have all the fun and none of the worry. No matter how you approach social media, one thing is for sure: it's not the real you that exists there, it is a modified version based on the story you want to tell about your life. And it's easy to be negatively effected by all the manufactured realities of the people you interact with on a daily basis.

The next time you are on Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest, ask yourself if it makes you feel better or worse about your own life. And then ask yourself why. There are good and bad things that can come from bearing witness to the lives, ambitions, and false realities of others. It's impossible to not compare yourself to what you see, but at least if you are mindful you can recognize that it's happening and work on re-confirming your own reality. And for your own sake, learn to hide people on Facebook or stop following them on Twitter. I especially benefit from hiding the negative ones and the broken records who need to broadcast their faith/politics exclusively. Those people aren't interacting, they are broadcasting.  And that's not what I'm there for.

More Procrastinating

Remember when I said that working on scheduling was going to be my next Small Change? I swear I am trying, really. But sometimes it just doesn't happen like I would hope and plan.  This is going to be a Small Change that takes a LOT of effort on my part. When you work for yourself, it's so easy to float from thing to thing AS YOU LIKE rather than AS IT SHOULD BE DONE. This leaves me often feeling like I never get my head above water, but it's my own darn fault for not developing some better habits.

Here is the schedule I designed for myself for Monday:
Well, never mind. I can't find the schedule I wrote (sigh). But it looked something like this:
Kids up, drive to school: 6-7:30AM
Teach Boot Camp: 7:45-8:30AM
Home and Checking Email, maybe more decaf coffee: 9-9:30AM
Blogging: 9:30-10:30AM
Breakfast: 10:30-10:45AM
Free internet time till 11:30
FTP and Boot Camp Work: 11:30-1:30
Pick up kids
No work in the afternoon
Teach Boot Camp 5:30-6:15PM
Cook Dinner

Welllll, in my defense, I didn't realize when I made this schedule that Monday was a school holiday. The kids were home, so I ended up doing lots of stuff around the house instead. Things I did besides any kind of work whatsoever:

• Peeled wallpaper
• Hung 2 rugs outside, beat them with a golf club, then brought them back inside
• Cooked flat iron steaks in the Sous Vide
• Hung out with my kiddos
• Made my 16 year old drive me (he is getting ready for driving test) to the farm co-op to look at chicks and chicken supplies, then to Kroger for liquid fabric softener for peeling wallpaper (turned into liquid fabric softener, sushi for 16 year old, avocados/bananas/freshly ground almond butter for muffins). 
• I would also like to mention that we drove by the mini horse farm (small horses, not small farm) and there was a mini pony in the field. It was so cute I almost died of a cute-attack.

Tuesday I tried again. Things I ended up doing instead of working on my to-do list:

• Answered emails, phone calls, and Facebook inquiries about my Living Social deal for Boot Camp.
• Had a 1.5 hour meeting at Panera
• Watched a 1:15 (yes, one HOUR and 15 minute) You Tube video on pasture management in beef cattle farming  (I have no cattle and only an acre or so of pasture)
• Read about what to grow so I can make my own chicken feed (I have no chickens)
• Read about square foot and raised bed gardening only to decide I'm going to lasagna instead
• Ordered way too many heirloom seeds for garden
• Made the rest of the steak (it had been cooking since Monday, so 18 hours in the Sous Vide and was by far the best steak I have ever made
• Not blog
• Hung out with my cousin who was here for a day
• Watched a terrible show on Netflix about animal hoarders

I think the lesson I continually learn when it comes to goal setting and new habits is that you have to start out small. I can't plan out an entire day and hate myself for failing to do it all. I didn't do it all because I was too overwhelmed with the idea of a perfect work day. I think I need to set smaller goals for the day and bigger goals for every 5-7 days.

Number one on the list is to spend some time AWAY from home working. I am so much more productive when I have no distractions. One thing that the book "Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength" discussed is setting up your time to have only two options: work or nothing. If you have stuff you need to get done and procrastinate a lot, go to the library, Starbucks, or even stay home. Set a period of time, like 3 hours. You can work or you can do nothing. I have been using Starbucks but I think for blogging work I will be better off at the library, without internet access.
You can read more about the "doing nothing" option on the great Happiness Project blog. As for myself, I want to spend one 2 hour block at some point in the next 3-4 days at the library writing blogs. Let's see if I can get that one task done.

Procrastination, In Pictures

This is what happens when you work from home and desperately need to avoid doing anything productive at all costs:

Bacon - 3 pounds plus an entire jar of yummy grease:

Gluten free pumpkin muffins with cream cheese frosting:

Banana-Avocado Muffins: 

THIS is why I need to force myself to work at the library or Starbucks. Sigh. It's 1pm and besides answering emails, I have done nothing but cook!

Kitchen Makeover, Part One

After a few months in our new house and the ongoing frustration with my tiny kitchen, I am finally taking action on making my kitchen work for me. I love to cook and bake and I hate that I have been less than excited about doing those things since moving. It's taken me awhile to accept that my big kitchen collection of stuff just wasn't going to work in my small kitchen and that I didn't need most of it anyway. I used this blog post as inspiration and started over by going through all my over-stuffed cabinets and putting everything on the floor ( some things are missing from this picture, like the giant toaster oven and the cookie sheets):

Gone:
Food processor - didn't use enough to justify keeping
10x14 Pyrex dish - have a 10x13 that's more versatile
4 cake tins - never used square ones, hate my rounds
1 blender - had two
toaster oven - took up too much space and can use broiler
giant lasagne pan with stand - took up too much space
1 stock pot - only need one
1 cutting board - was decoration only
2 serving bowls - have too many
1 serving plate - never used it and have two nicer ones
bread knife - have two
egg separator - that's what fingers are for
adjustable measuring cup - I have a set of 4 metal cups
mandolin
4 muffin pans (2 silicone regular size and 2 mini)
1 sieve (had a set of two and kept larger one)
splatter screen (had a set of three and kept largest one)
2 cookie sheets
Food chooper
1 bread knife
1 microwave cooking bowl (got rid of 1, kept 1)

Kept:
roasting pan
cast iron skillet
deep skillet
2 sauce pans (one stays on stove for coffee water)
French press
electric skillet for pancakes and mega bacon cooking
toaster
blender
magic bullet
food scale
crock pot
sous vide
Food Saver
2 baking dishes, one glass and one stoneware
stoneware loaf pan
2 square baking dishes, one glass and one stoneware
souffle pan
2 baking sheets, one stoneware and one metal
stand mixer
hand mixer
salad spinner
colander
cake stand
Tupperware cake carrier
cooling rack
cutting board
microwave
Some silly but useful gadgets like my zester, lemon/lime juicer, 2 veggie peelers, potato masher, apple corer, cake slicers (one square and one triangle), box grater, flour sifter, 2 spatulas, and a bunch of wooden spoons.

Once I moved all the excess stuff out, I placed everything back into the cabinets. I moved some things around so they were stored closer to where they are used and made sure that nothing that I use more than once a week was stacked with anything else or placed behind anything else in a cabinet.
Missions accomplished. My kitchen was still a mess, though. I moved on to step 2, which I will talk about next: the pantry.

18 Steps to an "Easy" Dinner

My kitchen shrunk by at least half when we moved into our new home in December. I love my small house but I admit it's been quite a challenge to learn how to use my new kitchen and feel happy while doing it. The old kitchen was big. It had tons of empty cabinets, and entire 4-5 ft. countertop that went unused but for decoration, an island with built in stove, a wall oven, a huge 2-door pantry, and plenty of room for our table for six. Now I have a little box of a kitchen with a range, a microwave on a metal cart in the corner, a range hood that doesn't vent very well and no outside windows (sigh), a tiny pantry, and just enough counter space to cook as long as there is NOTHING on them.

What this looks like in practice:
I decide I want to make an "easy" meal that will cook itself, so I:
1. Walk into the kitchen to cook meal.
2. Realize I can't do anything in there until everything from the last meal is cleaned and put away. I can't even just clean it and leave it to dry on the counter because I need the space.
3. Grumble, complain, curse inside my head as I wash pots, pans, cookie sheets, dishes, and my French press from this morning. I can't put it all in the dishwasher because it hasn't been unloaded yet and is full of clean stuff. Too much for me to handle, apparently.
4. Put away all food containers and garbage left on counter throughout last night and today. Tonight this included an empty doughnut container, two empty plastic candy bags (school project, I swear!), an empty flour canister I left on the counter to remind myself to buy more, and 2 owner's manuals for the new toys I used tonight (Foodsaver and Sous Vide, woot!).
5. Plug in new toys on now-cleaned counter-top.
6. Dig around for cutting board.
7. Unplug Food Saver and move it so I can set down the cutting board.
8. Clean cast iron skillet of egg yolk that broke when I made breakfast YESTERDAY.
9. Prep meat and set in skillet to sear.
10. Clean cutting board and put it away in the 30 seconds before I have to turn the meat.
11. Turn meat.
12. Realize I need cutting board to put meat on when it comes out of cast iron skillet, take it out of cabinet again.
13. Clean spattered grease from cooktop, get Foodsaver and plug it back in.
14. Place meat into FoodSaver bag, try 5 times to vacuum seal bag and finally succeed after taking meat OUT of bag, drying it, drying the entire inside of bag, and putting meat back into bag.
15. Clean cutting board again and put away. Knock over cooling rack that is also in cabinet with cutting board and decide I'll wait until the next time I need to open the cabinet to deal with it.
16. Walk away.
17. 15 minutes later: water in Sous Vide is at 130 degrees, time to place meat in. Realize vacuum sealed bag does not appear to be vacuumed all the way (it's sealed but still has air inside). Cannot face doing anything about it as it means remembering where I stored the Food Saver 20 minutes ago, taking it out, and starting over.
18. Put not quite vacuumed bag of meat in Sous Vide. One tiny corner is above the water. I can live with that. Meat will be ready in 24-48 hours. Hope it's worth it. (It was).

P.S. I got the Sous Vide for Christmas. Andrew and I saw them at Essex and I was SO excited because it was only 160.00 and I've wanted one for quite some time. He went back and got it for me the next day and then lied to me and told me he went back and it was gone. He likes to surprise me. I cooked an arm roast for 24 hours and it cooked perfectly. I can't wait to use it again tonight for chicken breast. BTW, I have seen them since then at Essex. Nobody knows what they are so they don't sell fast.

Small Changes Make a Big Difference, Lesson One

I am starting a new series about making small changes in my work-at-home life to become a happier, more productive person in 2012. I am the primary caretaker in my home and we have businesses that we run from home, too. We don't have any outside help at home or in our business. I ended 2011 knowing that things had to change because I was miserably trying to do everything and doing a crappy job at it all. I was not feeling productive, I wasn't happy with the quality of my housekeeping or by business work, and I was constantly feeling stressed and inadequate. 

I have been slowly working through some goal setting tools and I know that I must make 2012 about doing more of what I love and less of what I don't. It's going to be very hard to make some of these small changes, but I know they will make a huge difference in my daily life. I may actually wake up every morning and not feel dread for all the things I need to find time for but don't really want to do.

The first lesson I am working through is finding more time in my day by scheduling smarter and recognizing time sucks. My daily schedule has changed in what I thought were subtle ways over the past year. I added a boot camp class here and there to accommodate loyal clients, I had to start driving my kids to and from school when we moved, and I have more occasional events like speaking engagements, leading a book club, meeting business contacts, having client meetings, returning phone calls and emails, etc. Over time I became more and more stressed and less able to get anything done, but the changes were so gradual that I didn't realize why I was so miserable. I kept taking things on, thinking I had time for them, and then not doing well at anything!

It slowly dawned on me that I was stretched too thin and don't have enough dedicated blocks of time to do the work that will really make a difference to my businesses and my household.  I got caught up in thinking that one little meeting or 2 more hours per week teaching Boot Camp wouldn't make much of a dent at all in my weekly schedule, and over time that attitude led to a dead end. My business is flat, I'm not exercising enough, I don't have enough time to get things done around the house, I don't feel like I am doing well at the things I am responsible for in our businesses, and I certainly never feel justified in sitting down and relaxing. Yet through all of this I felt like I was being lazy and that I should be able to get more done!

All that is to say that I finally see this situation more clearly and I am making hard decisions that make me feel incredibly guilty but that I know I must make. FOr example, I moved a Boot Camp class to a day when I already have class so I can do them back to back and open up Tuesdays to work uninterrupted at home. Before, I would not have more than 4-5 hours at any one time ALL WEEK to get work and household duties done before I had to be somewhere or do something else. I was so burned out on the constant moving from one commitment to another that any time I did spend at home was unproductive spent zoned out in front of the TV or computer. Now I have one day a week that I can work from 8AM-2PM in one place. Not necessarily uninterrupted time, but time where I don't have to be somewhere and time when I feel a bit less rushed and frazzled. I can dig deeper and I can build on ore complicated projects and ideas. I am still working 6 days a week (teaching a class, I mean) but I made a little pocket of time appear by moving things around.

Yesterday was the first Tuesday since I made this change and I was able to spend more time than normal to finish our newsletter and edit it obsessively (so that I was actually proud of it instead of thinking it was just good enough to send out), and I had my apron on TWICE! I got to bake something in the morning AND make homemade pizzas (regular wheat flour and grain free gluten free) for dinner. I also did something I haven't done in a LONG time - I went to a store and browsed. It was pleasurable and leisurely. I wasn't stressed or in a hurry. I wasn't there with my coupon binder, grocery list, and meal plan for the week. I was just a person feeling a bunch of fuzzy bath mats and admiring 30 varieties of salad plates.

In summary, little commitments add up very quickly. Don't make the mistakes I made and think that a little commitment for an hour here and 45 minutes there won't make a huge difference in your life, whether you work from home, work in an office, or are a homemaker. I tried not to multitask from in the moment but didn't realize that my entire life had become one big multitasking nightmare because I never had enough time to do anything well before I was needed somewhere else.

My next small change will be in how I schedule work time and where I do my work (not my teaching but the blogging and behind the scenes business development). More on that next time!