How to transform your life in 2023
“Change is inevitable, but transformation is by conscious choice”
New Years Day, the first day of a new year, a brand new chapter in your book of life, yes / no? -
One of the things I want to do more in 2023 is to write more often, read more books, listen to more empowering audio books, and produce more good content for my podcast.
Over the last two weeks in the build up to Christmas, I got a great shock as I picked up the courage to check how often I have been on my phone during the day. I am incredibly conscious of my phone usage, as I need the bloody thing for absolutely everything.
As I own a number of businesses, and also building a health community on line, I really need to be on my phone a lot, or else everything I have worked for will be neglected and suffer. This is the conscious bias I tell my brain of course, who is a willing partner in my phone use / abuse / addiction.
Anyway - the truth of course is that I don’t need to be on my phone at all that much, it’s total rubbish that I tell myself, and in fact, if you look into the science around phone usage, so many of us our now addicted to these devices, as by using them, it releases dopamine into our brains, which means we get great satisfaction by being around them and using them regularly.
I have figured out that if I genuinely want to be more productive in 2023, and do the things I tell myself I want to do, one way to achieve this is to reduce my time on devices.
If I was to cut my usage down to 2 hours per day, that’s 672 hours per year, which is the grand total of 28 days per year. A whole month on your phone, by simply using it 2 hours per day - surely that would be plenty for any human being?
Food for thought everyone, and this is something I need to really work on.
One of the things I was reading over Christmas (whilst on my phone), was an article which set out, 7 Japanese concepts that will help transform your life.
I always like to read about how other traditions, people from other parts of the world, live their life, and their thoughts on how humans might achieve happiness and contentment in their lives.
Each of these concepts struck a chord with me, and I felt was the perfect way to start of my new commitment to increasing the writings on my blog on this New Year’s Day. So here goes;
7 Japanese concepts that will transform your life
IKIGAI - Discover your purpose in life. This must be something that aligns with your strengths, passions and needs of the world. When you do this and commit to this, it will give you true meaning to life.
SHIKITA GA NAI - Let go of what you cannot change. Focus on what you can change. This will allow you to put all of your energy into a more positive approach to living. I have personally been able to do this in the past two years, and I cannot state how life changing this concept alone is.
WABI - SABI - Find peace in imperfection. Go gentle with yourself. No human is perfect.
GAMAN - Preserve your dignity through tough times. Show emotional maturity and self control. Practice patience, resilience and understanding.
OUBAITORI - Do not compare yourself to others. We are all on our own journey. Focus only on your own progress.
KAIZEN - Seek improvement in all aspects of your life. Implement small consistent changes to your days, weeks and months. Stick with this.
SHA-HA-RI - When the student is ready, the teacher will appear. When the student is truly ready, the student will disappear. This is a way of thinking about how to master a technique. There are 3 stages to acquiring knowledge *** SHU - learn the basics ***HA - start experimenting, learn from experts, and people doing it *** RI - This stage focuses on innovation, and your ability to apply your learning.
Imagine if you invested time and effort into the above ideas and concepts, and the impact that could make in your own life.
For me personally, I am over fifteen years into my own block of personal development.
Life to date has taught me many lessons, and the teachings continue on a daily basis. However one of the things that sticks with me is that there is no shortcut to achieving any kind of success in life.
Relationships require a huge amount of time and investment. Business requires a huge amount of time and investment. The most important one for me HEALTH - this requires a huge amount of time and investment.
If you are being true to yourself and lucky enough to be couscous enough, to get to this stage in life where you are reading this and considering implementing this approach, then for me - you are halfway there.
The rest of the journey is to make a commitment to yourself to do the work on a daily basis.
Try not to take your eye of the ball.
Life is busy, difficult, uncertain, tragic at times, but it is also a wonderful gift.
Don’t let it pass you by. Get out of the comfort zone, that’s where failure, disease, unhappiness and brokenness resides.
For me, I have clarity on what I want to do this year, and I am committed to making the right level of personal investment, both in mind and in body.
I hope you guys have a great 2023, and please feel free to continue to reach out to me throughout the next twelve months.
Happy New Year,
CD