Walk down any city street, open a website, scroll through your social feeds, turn on the radio/tv and what are you inevitably bombarded with? Promises. Empty promises. Advertisements selling you aspirations that will make you feel good and more whole.

We all know ads aren’t exactly honest and we may do our utmost to avoid them, but the fact is, they work and whether we like it or not, they shape our desires.

Given most of us aren’t about to toss out our TVs or phones, ads and false promises are a reality we’re going to have to live with, but that doesn’t mean we can’t take some steps to protect ourselves from being manipulated by them.

Posing yourself a question is typically a good place to start. 

How much do the things I own actually make me feel happy and fulfilled?

If that one doesn’t hit home, try this one:

How much do the things I own prevent me from becoming the person I aspire to be?

These two questions are meant to be meditated on, so don’t expect answers to come flooding to you, but if you take the time to really reflect on them they may help you find some life changing perspective.

In the meantime, here are some tips/insights from some people who “have it all” from the world’s perspective.

#1 – Relationships

Famous and successful billionaire investor, Warren Buffet said, “I measure success by how many people love me”. Huh? One of the most successful investors of all time doesn’t measure success by how much he wins, but by how much he is loved?

I feel it is always a useful exercise to imagine myself in my final days looking back at my life: what is it I will value the most? If it is your relationships, ask yourself how much you’re prioritizing them in your life right now. 

#2 – Do what you love

Famous skateboarder and entrepreneur, Tony Hawk said, “You might not make it to the top, but if you are doing what you love, there is much more happiness there than being rich or famous.”

Interesting perspective to be sure. It certainly defies the popular message peddled in the media today that rolling like Kim Kardashian is the way to happiness.

St. Bernard of Clairvaux, an epic Abbot from the 11th century once said “what we love we shall grow to resemble.”

We may not always have a choice where we work, but we certainly have a choice how we spend the rest of our time.

Find something you love to do that fills you with peace and purpose and dedicate yourself to becoming better at it. It may end up not only enriching your life, but others as well.

#3 – Be yourself

Bruce Lee once said, “Always be yourself, express yourself, have faith in yourself, do not go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate it.”

Wow. That is some cutting and super-relevant advice for us today. I figure one of the biggest problems for most of us is we may not even know who we truly are. We have been conditioned by the media that who we are is not enough, or insignificant, and have been seemingly built to imitate those who the world considers to be ‘successful’.

St. Thomas Aquinas once shared what he felt was a recipe for the salvation of a person:

to know what he ought to believe; to know what he ought to desire; and to know what he ought to do.

– Two Precepts of Charity, 1273

I suppose that is a good place to start. If you can answer these three questions and feel at peace with your answers, you’re far better off than most of us.

The answers to these questions will give us the confidence and purpose to both ‘express ourselves’ and have ‘faith’ in ourselves.

Not time like today to get started on this!

#4 – Take the focus off yourself sometimes

Oprah Winfrey once said, “When people say they are looking for happiness, I ask, what are you giving to the world?”

Sometimes, we get caught up in our own lives and forget that there is a massive world around us in need of kindness, love and people who care enough to make a difference. 

You’d be surprised how refreshing helping others can be.

It has been scientifically proven that giving to others can have mental and physical health benefits such as increased self-esteem, less depression, lowered levels of stress and lower your blood pressure.

So, if you can’t put your finger on how you’re making the world a better place, take some time and figure out why.

Changing the world isn’t as hard as many people think.

Every day we are presented with dozens of small, sometimes big, ways we can contribute to making the world a better place. Look for those opportunities and then do the right thing, for yourself, and for the rest of us.

• Gratitude is scientifically proven to improve your psychological and physical health and well-being.
• Gratitude also increases your chances of developing great relationships.
• Learning how to practice gratitude is a skill anyone can learn.

Are you a “glass half full” or “glass half empty” type of person?

We’ve all had moments when we’ve felt sorry for ourselves, and moments when we’re overwhelmingly grateful, but did you ever ask yourself which is better for you and why? 

Gratitude is good for you

Modern psychology tells us that those who practice gratitude over self-pity are mentally stronger and healthier for it – gratitude has some awesome psychological benefits including lowering stress, increasing the likelihood of experiencing joy, and decreasing episodes of depression and anxiety.

Gratitude also increases your chances of having life-giving relationships. Gratitude helps us to appreciate those around us who enrich our lives and also encourages us to express gratitude to them, which reinforces a cycle of positive affirmation. Practising gratitude helps us avoid taking our friends and loved ones for granted and this helps strengthen our relationships by keeping our hearts open to giving generously

Moreover, there’s also some physical benefits from showing gratitude daily. Some notable ones include: improving the quality of your sleep, heart health and even bolstering your immune system.

Gratitude is a worthy challenge

Gratitude isn’t something that just shows up one day, it is a discipline, something we have to practice to get right. So, if gratitude is something you’re struggling with, understand that you’re not weird or dark.

Being able to see and take stock of the reasons we have to be grateful each day is something we have to practice and in order to practice it one needs to make time and space in our life for the exercise.

Making time to reflect and find the reasons to be grateful each day will require some sacrifice of your time, but the investment in this life-skill will pay you dividends in almost every area of your life.

So, find the time and if you have to, schedule a time and place to practice it.

Training yourself to be  grateful

Here are a few time-tested ways to develop your ability to be grateful.

Bad habits that eat-up gratitude

Telling yourself “if only…” is a bad-habit that prevents you from practising gratitude. 

If only I had more time; if only I had better friends; if only I made more money; if only my teacher knew how hard I tried on that test. It is so easy to repeat this litany to ourselves, but this victim mentality will prevent you from finding the reasons to be grateful in any given situation.

So, if you hear this litany in your head or one similar like “why me”, tell them to take a hike!

Focus on your blessings

This one may seem pretty obvious, but how often do you take time to   count your blessings? It may seem like a silly exercise, but as the reasons to be grateful pile up it is amazing how your whole disposition can change. You start seeing all these reasons to be grateful around you instead of the reasons to feel sorry for yourself.

Give this a try, it only takes a few minutes and you’ll surely come to see it is a worthy exercise.

Practice courteousness and generosity

Finally, always remember to be generous with your please and thank yous and try your best to look the person in the eye when offering them. It is a time-tested way to practice gratitude and also a meaningful way to share it.

Oh and of course, make an effort to be generous. Generosity is a way of acknowledging the blessings in our life and a way of spreading blessings to others. Gratitude is intimately linked with generosity.

If generosity does not come easily to you, take some time and reflect if you’re practising gratitude. Odds are, at some point, you stopped counting your blessings.

Thanks for reading!

Self-mastery, yup, it’s definitely something Yoda or your Sensei would lecture you about, but believe it or not, it has been a discipline since time immemorial.

We won’t bore you with a lengthy explanation as to why. It is pretty obvious, right? 

The ability to control our actions and focus our energies where we want as opposed to where we are lead has obvious benefits. Whether this leading is done by others or our own impulses, emotions, etc, nobody wants power over their actions to be determined by anyone other than themselves.

Self-mastery is simply the ability to control our own desires or impulses. It is easy to define, but takes a lifetime of dedication and self-disciple to master.

So, where to get started? Here are 10 tips to start you on your journey to self-mastery.

1.Create a budget and stick to it

If you’ve ever tried to spend money strictly on budget, you’ll know that sticking to it takes plenty of self-discipline. When you’re tempted to make that one little purchase that will throw you off your budget, start your self-mastery journey by sticking to your budget.

2. Fast

Fasting is a great way to practice self-control and take you further down the road to self-mastery. By choosing not to surrender to your food cravings, your levels of hunger could go down after some time. This way, you’ll be the master of your hunger and not the other way around.

3. Pick a talent and schedule a practice time every day

By choosing to practice and work on your talent daily, regardless of what may come up to demotivate you, you are choosing commitment and diligence over giving in to your emotions or physical demands.

 Through making these decisions daily, you’re training yourself to be resilient and this can roll over into other parts of your life.

4. Practice meditation

Have you ever felt like your mind is too busy? If your mind seems like a loud place with chaotic streams of thought coming from all directions, meditation can help you with that. To actively focus on clearing your thoughts and calm your mind, it takes discipline and inner mastery.

5. Exercise regularly

It’s common knowledge that exercise does not only condition the body, but also the mind. 

The temptation to turn on the TV and veg or pick-up your phone and scroll through your feeds can be powerful, but you know that exercise is a critical component of health and well-being, so, discipline yourself to resist your sloth impulses and take a key step towards self-mastery. 

6. Sacrifice

The only time giving something up will ever help you on your journey towards self-mastery is sacrificing something you enjoy in order to exercise your self-mastery muscle.

Think of it as practising mind over matter. Life is a long road of choices. Saying yes to something and no to something else. Sometimes, we may need to say ‘no’ to something we want because we need to say ‘yes’ to something we need.

This is never an easy choice, but practice makes it easier. Give it a shot on something small in your life, like forgoing your next cup of coffee.

Being able to say ‘no’ when we need to is an important way of saying ‘yes’ to self-mastery.

7. Pray daily

If you’ve ever tried to pray but found yourself drifting from one thought to another aimlessly or are constantly struggling to find time for it, you’re certainly not alone.

Prayer requires a clear mind and focus, much like meditation. If you wish to upgrade your prayer life then practice discipline in it,, it’s another inner battle won and another step towards self-mastery.

8. Challenge yourself

Find a way to throw yourself in the deep end by taking on an extraordinary challenge – do this by choosing an activity that you know you’ll find difficult and then get it done.

Your choice of activity should push you to your limits by either requiring a great deal of inner strength or outer strength (because it’s often a mind over matter challenge when you challenge yourself physically).

Challenging ourselves is a time-tested way of forging ourselves into self-mastery ninjas.

9.Give your belly the cold shoulder

Another great way to achieve self-mastery is to stop yourself from eating before you feel full. This is not only a way to exercise your self-mastery skills, but it is also good for your health!

10. Do it little by little

There’s a reason why we call it a journey to self-mastery, it isn’t a journey you make overnight.

So, don’t be hard on yourself if you misstep from time to time. The important thing here is  persistence.

We recommend taking small steps before setting high bars. 

For example, if you haven’t exercised for the past five year, we don’t recommend doing a triathlon. Obviously!

By starting small, you’ll begin to slowly but surely make headway on your journey and see yourself strengthen and grow, one small victory at a time. Each victory will build your confidence and make every day of your journey a little easier.