I found a life lesson list here this morning and thought to share, with some personal extras thrown in there. Quirky, sure. But hey, I am in a light mood and am very much in love with the world at the moment. What have I learned, with time and experience? Not much, I fear.

Here are my Secrets of Adulthood. Although these items may not seem particularly profound, each one was a revelation when I finally figured it out:
The days are long, but the years are short. If I look back, wow, I was at school ‘just the other day’ but when I look forward, December holidays are sooo far away. Feel familiar?

Someplace, keep an empty shelf. Having just moved house, I can tell you that an empty drawer/shelf somewhere always gets filled. It’s lovely to find the empty shelf.

Turning the computer on and off a few times often fixes a glitch. In fact, I reckon the same counts for cellphones, exercise watches and debugging your brain.
It’s okay to ask for help. Still an ongoing battle for this area of my life. Personally (and because its easier than accepting my own problems), I blame my father for being the World Champion at not asking for help.

You can choose what you do; you can’t choose what you LIKE to do. Whoaa! Big lesson here. Choose the right person to love, the right place to live, the right career for YOU…

Happiness doesn’t always make you feel happy. There is a lull at times after a big decision. Happiness is to follow in abundance shortly.

What you do EVERY DAY matters more than what you do ONCE IN A WHILE. Amen.

You don’t have to be good at everything. Crisis that is hard for a person like me to accept. Being able to comfortably suck at something is not quite the way I was programmed. I`ll get back to you on this one.

Soap and water removes most stains. It does not, however, remove scars.

It’s important to be nice to EVERYONE. Kindness hey, doc G!

You know as much as most people. But you will never know everything. Thank goodness for that.

Over-the-counter medicines are very effective. Effective at treating the symptom. To get to the cause, however, you need to go deeper into history.
Eat better, eat less, exercise more. Duh.

What’s fun for other people may not be fun for you — and vice versa. But….look after yourself as the primary fun factor, and hang out with people who think you are fun when you are quirky.

People actually prefer that you buy wedding gifts off their registry. They may attend your wedding oneday and bring you an Al Pacca.

If you’re not failing, you’re not trying hard enough. I take this to heart, as I failed miserably in the pool last week. However, I have been back a few times, tried a little harder (until I struggled to drive 3 blocks home last night from the effort) and found more success.

No deposit, no return. Demand interest…

Have fun, above all. Chat tomorrow.

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now if those 3 tunes don’t make your heart all warm and fuzzy…. get a transplant!

without a doubt, 3 great house party tracks.

house party…. sounds great. off to see The Mother in an hour. Stoked. Some Merlot Rose might have to make an appearance.

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original post here

“If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, ‘thank you,’ that would suffice.” – Meister Eckhart

Every Thursday is Happiness Day on Zen Habits.

Many days, I try to humble myself and hold a 2-minute gratitude session. I simply sit or kneel, with no distractions, close my eyes, and think about what I’m grateful for and who I’m grateful for. (more…)

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People always remark how busy I am. After I watched this today it made me wonder if I am one of those people who are addicted to being busy.

What keeps me busy?

1. Work – current and future projects.
2. Coaching athletes – its far more time consuming than you think.
3. Urban Ninja – this site is time consuming.
4. Relationships – nuff said. relationships, with humans, requires time.

What have I done to cut down on commitments to time and energy?

1. Kept my projects down to a bare minimum. I used to have 6 ideas I was working on. I currently have 2.
2. Reduce social media time. Are you addicted to Facebook? Do you wake up and look at twitter (to see what other people are doing) before tending to the amazing person lying next to you?
3. Reduce mental junk by planning properly.

Am I addicted to being busy?

Not at all. In fact, I am working hard so that I can be permanently unbusy once I have children so that I can be a full time dad. That’s the most honorable job I can think of doing, so that’s what gets me up in the morning.

Can you sit, and be quiet? I know many people who cant sit in a restaurant waiting for 10minutes for someone to arrive without tweeting, facebooking, checking email, sending 3 sms’s and calling someone. Unless all these things don’t relate to your BIG THING, big picture and hugest ever goal achievement, maybe you should be sitting for 10 minutes and just be totally amazed at how the world doesn’t fall apart around you every day. Watch the people and realise they each have their own world going on around them, and if they are addicted to being busy, watch them and see how it destroys their inner peace, their reason for being a beautiful human being and blurs their reality.

So, are you addicted?

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Its going to be a weekend of personal planning for me and as such I wanted to share with you the questions that were given to me to answer in my personal planning. I have always insisted its a personal journey and that the journey changes all the time, as our needs and peer groups change.

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Key headers…

1. Big Picture (3-4 most important things)

2. Key Likes (3-4 areas that most drive my personal satisfaction)

3. Geography (where I will spend my time )

4. Body — key points for my body

5. Mind — key points for mind/knowledge/education

6. Spirit — when and how I will rest (from training, from work, from everything)

7. Places I want to visit

8. Personal Asset Allocation (today, five year, ten year)

9. Next twelve month expense projection

10. Next twelve month income projection

11. Personal Top Ten List — the ten most important things in my life that require focus, effort and time

12. Actions — what actions/habits are most important to me

13. Hazards — what items need to be watched to avoid roadblocks

The next few lines are quoted direct from Gordo about what this will (hopefully) do for you, as its done for me…

In the process of doing this review, without distractions, you’ll learn a lot about whether your effort is aligned with your goals. As well, you’ll learn if your goals are consistent with your main satisfaction drivers.

I build that out annually and review it quarterly. It’s been an immensely valuable tool for me.

Lots of folks resist the idea that we create our own reality through thinking about it. I always ask myself “how can I achieve anything without constantly thinking it about it”?

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Brings me to another point. How do we expect to achieve anything without constantly doing something about it? I hear alot of people talking about plans, ideas, dreams, visions, etc but I know a handful of people who are actually doing something about it. Only a handful.

How rough is that? All that wasted energy, emotion and effort.

Align yourself with your peer group, set time aside for action, and tie in some valuable resources. History, as it seems, waits for nobody.

Raoul

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This week I`m getting back into that thing called Structured Training. Completing a basic week over and over for a while. I am always amazed how hard this is, but what a critical success factor it actually is for going “Long”. With all the stress factors in my life, its so hard to get something as simple as a Basic Week right over and over.

I believe this is the single biggest factor why some athletes seem to race “Above their Potential”. They are the ones who have consistently put together a block of training by teaching their bodies to go at the right pace, and have been able to recover session to session and got the most out of their training, not necessarily the most training possible.

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Happiness is such a factor for doing the good miles. Nothing kills my vibe for getting up regularly at 5:30am like personal stress. It totally overwhelms the fear I have for not performing properly. When everything in my life is going smoothly i.e. family, love, work, play, friends et al, then I find training a breeze and I have the excess energy in abundance to train properly.

Clearing the mental junk food we so willingly add to our lives is super important to me and should be to you too. Another thing that`s constantly on my mind lately is “Where do my thoughts go once I`ve had them?”

I am someone who takes his stress out on himself, and I find the more regularly I exercise, the better my body becomes at getting rid of this toxic stress flowing through my core. I am a better, more patient, fun and reliable person when I`m regularly exercising. Basic Week stuff all over again…

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Great piece from Gordo on FEAR to read this week. If you dont read his blog, I recommend you do so on a regular basis. He is one of the smartest guys I deal with on what it takes to be truely great.

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Was back at gym this morning at sparrows and realised how much less power I have in the morning. I dont know if this was an isolated incident but going to read up a little on it and report back, seemed to be about 15% less than when I gym in the late afternoon.

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If you havent entered for the Metro Mojo Run Series in your area yet, go here its a blast and worth the Buffalo entry fee. goodie bag, free food, good looking company and a great experience. go now……….

adios for now.

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