The secret to true happiness is to remember that true happiness originates not from outside of yourself, but from within.

Thinking of a career frightens me. I am kind of ironic. I love hard work. Producing worth while things is a passion of mine. I love helping people. I love to focus on something for long and intense periods of time.

I am also a huge scardy cat when it comes to committing to something for a long period of time. A career? That is a big commitment. I worry that a career is a hole that I will fall into and not ever to be able to get out of. I’m afraid that it will rule my life forever, that I won’t be able to change a thing.

Good news! If all those things happened to me it would be my fault not the careers. A career isn’t a gaping chasm that is waiting for people to devour. Career is something that we as people develop and use to advance ourselves and what we do in this life. Okay I am getting a bit tender hearted now. This post is actually mostly for me, not for all of you who have moved into this gladly and are telling me to stop crying.

So really a career is good for us. It is a path we can use to develop ourselves and to help others.

Helping others is really important actually. That is something that we improve ourselves by doing in exponential ways rather than just step wise. I am dang glad that I am helping people at least a little bit in my little career as a scientist. With time if I am lucky I can become a Mad Scientist!

So here are some thoughts on making the most of a career.

• Don’t think of it as “this job” only. We are likely to have more than one job. We are likely to have already had more than one job. So consider how your jobs have shaped you in the past. Were they good for you? What did you learn? What is this job going to teach you? How are you going to use this job to further develop yourself and your career?

• Think of your entire career as a process of self development. Your career can be a lot more than just a job or series of jobs. It can be something that transforms you into your ultimate self. So think, is it just a job or is it the next step towards your ideal self?

• Your career is a huge symphony, or piece of art. What do you want it to be or say when you’re all done? What is your passion? Are you working toward improving the world? You don’t have to do a huge thing. Just think about how you can make a difference and where you can make a difference. Then can be part of career, to gradually make that happen.

• In what ways are you going to improve the lives others? You can do that in any job. Offer great service if you’re in that realm. Develop something more than just a widget for people to buy. Make that widget in a way that makes people lives better. Maybe your career will be all about empowering others to accomplishments they wouldn’t have been privileged to without it.

• Always be honest, fair, and devoted. It’s okay to work smarter and harder than anyone else, to totally outdo the competition. We live in a competitive world to say the least! But whatever you do in your career do it honestly, and put your work in where it is due. If you do this you will be able to sleep good at night and know that your career will be one that you can always be proud of for the right reasons.

• If you can do all the above then the desirable things will definitely come to you in the process of time. You will get the paychecks you need to survive. You can do what you really want to. You career will be something you come to truly love, and it will inspire others because you did these things, not because they are in love with your profession. They will be inspired by you the person that made it all happen.

So today I am bit less apprehensive about a career. I think I have come to grips with the fears I have with a career. I am not giving up my freedom, but am actually developing it and giving it wings by working towards bigger and better things.

What are you doing with yourself today?

Routines will preserve sanity and help you increase productivity as a parent. These are things that are related and still different subjects because they often just don’t go hand in hand!

The Benefits of the Routine

As a parent if you haven’t discovered it, a routine is a life saver. It doesn’t have to be like everyone else’s, but having a routine will save a lot time, trouble, and help your children out big time. It will also help you as an adult to be much more productive in everything that you do.

Routines give you a plan and they help you focus your efforts on different things throughout the day. They will also increase your efficiency on the things that you actually have time to work on. Routines will help you avoid getting distracted by time wasters. They will also help you fit in the important things like exercise, relaxing, and work.

As a parent having the routine of now it is time to play, eat, clean or whatever will be great for you and your kids. The older kids will be happy to know what to expect. They will secretly like that you have dinner at 6pm and they are expected to be there. It helps them to feel loved and wanted. It also gives them a firm footing for all the other craziness that they have in their lives because they are likely dealing with school, friends, and other activities. Younger children will absolutely thrive and live by it.

Having a solid routine will be a major developmental help for your babies and younger kids. I am not sure if you new it, but humans by nature hate any kind of change in our world. Mentally it is very difficult to process and deal with. This is a big part of why we hate starting a new project, or moving to a new place, and especially letting go of people that have died. Think about how hard it is for you as an adult and then consider how hard not having a routine that you understand and can count on will be for a baby, or small child. They have basically no control in their world. They are totally dependent on their caregivers. Having a routine in their daily lives will empower them. They will think they have control on at least parts of their lives, and they will have things that they can count on a regular basis. This will help then to relax and be happier. They won’t have to mentally deal with the many surprises and changes that are so unsettling and can throw them off for weeks.

Where Lack of a Routine Can Kill Your Kids

Throw them off for weeks? We had a period a while back where all three of our kids, the 4 year old, 2 year old, and 9 month old weren’t eating well, were all sick, hardly slept through the night, and were little stinkers to each other and to us their parents. We thought we were giving them everything they needed and wanted but realized that we had gone off our routine of set meal, play, and bedtimes. With a little work we stopped the interruptions to this routine as much as possible from church, work, friends, and play. In three days all three kids were healthy once again, happy (even when kids are content and happy they will fight a little bit, but it was back to only a little bit), eating well, and back to sleeping 10 to 12 hours a night. The routine made a night and day difference.

My wife and I are quite sure that when we are off our routine of set meal times the kids don’t eat very well. When we put them to bed at different times they sleep worse, and less. When they don’t have a set schedule to count on it wears them down mentally and physically and they will have a harder time being healthy. This recent spout of no routine lasted almost 3 weeks because of the holidays, and vacations that made it so hard to be on a routine.

As an adult having a routine with kids helps me keep some sanity in life. If you don’t have more than two kids you just haven’t experienced how consuming in the long run these two or more kids can actually be. Having a routine helps me still exercise, help get the house cleaned, and have time to spend with just my spouse in addition to being a parent and surviving the craziness of having a few kids.

With or without kids a routine will help you to be more productive. You will have less problem trying to decide what to do next and you will be able to focus on what your doing at the very moment more easily than if you don’t have a routine.

So here are my tips for getting a routine going in your life.

1. Set a time that you’re going to go to bed and wake up each day so you get enough sleep. This is different for you and your kids. Carefully consider how much sleep you need to regularly get. Hold to it! Adults usually need at least 6 to 8 hours, teenagers 8 to 10 hours, and younger children 10 to 14 hours, and babies often need 14 to 18 or more. Sleep is important!
2. Eat your meals at the same time each day. This will help your body to function more consistently and effortlessly over time.
3. Give yourself personal time to exercise and follow creative pursuits each day if only for a few minutes. This will help you be happy, healthy and productive in other areas over time.
4. Organize your craziness into as small a block of time as possible. Run you errands and other chores that are not everyday day things all on a certain day or time. My wife tries to only drag the kids to go shopping once a week and then only after they get a good meal, and nap. She also tries to break up the errands with a stop at the park. This helps the kids to be much happier when she is out and about.
5. Minimize the disruptions to your routine. With kids we have found that if we don’t mess it up more than once or twice a week, they will be just fine jumping right back into it and not suffer many negative effects of being thrown off.

Life happens. Try and minimize the craziness and things will fall into place nicely! I can definitely stand as a witness to that!

What part of your routine is the most productive? What is your favorite part?

Here are some similar posts you may like…

Terrible Twos Help

7 Tips for a Great Day

Choices, The Key to a Great Day

The Library

On this website you will see a lot of posts about books. I love books for learning about new subjects, learning how to do new things, expanding my horizons in new ways, entertainment, and a lot of other things. Over the last three years I have had the opportunity to finish my masters degree which required a lot of reading from books, welcome 2 kids into the world in addition to the one I already had who all love books, and to read on my own time a lot. All told I have read at least 500 books in that time. Sure some of them are kids books, but there have been a lot of other ones as well.

The point is that I have gone through a lot of books. I have only bought about 25 books total in that time. That may be a high guess, but I want to be sure I am not over exaggerating.

How have I done this? I have made great use of the local library. Each time I go I find books I didn’t know I wanted to read in addition to what I was looking for. Libraries are amazing. They let you try out books without having to buy them first! Maybe you aren’t like me, but there are a very few books that I will read more than once. Ironically recipe books face almost the worst attrition rate. So why buy them to have them just sit on your self? That would definitely clutter up your life and mind in addition to making a dent in the finances.

For my wife and I books are a must, so is managing our finances. So we go the library route. Here is a short list of reasons why your library is really rocking in your favor.

• Libraries have room to store a lot of books! This means that they are more likely to have the books your looking for, and many more related to the subject of interest than the book store.

• They don’t charge a fee for membership. This is amazing, they are funded publicly and so you can read and learn for free. This is like being able to take mini classes for free! They do charge fees for late books, but honestly they are usually so small you can chalk them up to improving the library and just move on.

• Libraries aren’t worried about having the latest trends only. Bookstores are trying to sell books. So they are looking for the latest moneymakers to maximize the bottom line. Libraries don’t have to worry about profits, so they can gather the classics and can afford to let books collect dust for years keeping them available for you.

• Most libraries are carrying the latest released books by the hottest authors. I have been impressed to find a wide variety of books all recently released at my library.

• Interlibrary loan. Often if your library doesn’t have a book another will and they gladly loan books between libraries. This basically gives you two or more libraries worth of books under one roof. Bookstores can’t keep up with the variety.

• Public events are hosted and provided by libraries for your benefit for free on a regular basis. My library hosts free movies in a real theatre and has authors coming regularly to talk about their latest books. Don’t forget the kid’s story time. The best part about these events is they are provided for free, and are free of the pushy sales atmosphere sometimes found in bookstores.

• Libraries are conveniently located to where people are living and near community centers rather than in the mall. Dragging your kids there is easier than fighting them through the mall. This again helps you avoid the constant pressure to spend your money.

• You can try out books again and again at no cost to help decide if you actually want to buy it. There are a lot of good books available; you only need the ones that are amazing on your shelves. You can let the library store the rest!

• Frequenting the library and reading regularly will help you to stay educated and up to date with life. It will also increase your social smarts by making you a better conversationalist versed on a wider range of subjects.

• You can have a constantly changing bookshelf at home. You can check out a lot of books from the library and read them at your leisure. See what you really like and renew the really interesting ones. We do this for kid books. It is amazing what books the kids will love and which they just don’t care to open once we get home. By checking out lots of books for them we give them a constantly changing variety to choose from. This also reduces the request for the same book over and over (23 times in one day I think is the record for a favorite book we had).

So stop buying books and check them out instead. Libraries are an amazing convenience available for free. They are usually funded by taxes so they aren’t free but this is all the more reason to use them, so you can get your moneys worth!

Check out your local library today. You will be surprised to find that many of your friends and neighbors may already be there as well.

Have you been to the library this year? How often do you check books out compared to buying them?

The right choices are The Key to a Great Day. The key is choosing how you will act and react to what comes your way. This is a follow up to the post Bad Day or Bad Choices?. I talk there about making choices as the person you want to be rather than making choices like the person you don’t want to be.

This video talks about the key to a great day, our opportunity to choose how we act and react in any situation.

I got to thinking about having a bad day. Our choices are key but there are factors other than our own choices that can influence our day. I thought I had blown it the idea of making the decisions the person you want to be would make for a great day. Then I realized it really works, especially with a few follow up ideas.

There are three sources of influence in our lives. These are the basic things that can influence us and how our days and lives go.

1. Events and situations that occur in the natural world. Things like the weather, and natural disasters (like Chile, and Haiti have dealt with).
2. The choices and actions of others. Other people will make choices that influence us and we have no control over.
3. Our own choices and action. We have a lot of choice as to how things go in our lives.

So of all three of those influences, our own choices I believe is still the most powerful. The first two can change the focus and environment of our lives, but only we can decide how we will react and act in our daily lives. Good, bad, and ugly things will come our way. We still have the choice to react how we want too.

In any situation, good or bad, we have the opportunity to react and choose to act like the person we want to be.

What type of person do you want to be? How will you react and act to be like that?

Some days we deal with just drag on, like unending nightmares. How do you have consistently great days? Here are 7 tips to help you to have a great day every day.

Start with enough sleep. Each person needs a certain amount, and needs to get it regularly to function well.

Eat right each day. Get your protein, carbs, fruits, veggies, and dairy, and vitamins as minerals as needed. Don’t over or under do anything to regularly.

Drink enough water each day. I need 3 liters at least and 4 is better. Drink at least 64 ounces.

Spend time with people you like and love. They are your haven, and comfort. At least a few minutes that are free of worry will change the entire tempo of your day! Kids, spouses, parents, siblings, and friends can all help with this, and you will be helping them.

Spend a few minutes at least doing something that you like. Your passion, hobby, whatever. I like to read things I don’t have to at least 15 minutes a day. This opens up my mental energies and releases stress I have trapped inside. Worries will fade away!

Only focus on a few major tasks. I like to have three or fewer tasks that will make a big difference in my day. To many leads to potential failure and disappointment.

Let go of what you can’t change. There are a lot of negative things we are faced with regularly that we can’t change. Don’t make them a part of you; only let them touch you as much as a raindrop can touch an umbrella. They will hit, but will fall away if we don’t embrace them.

Overall be sure to balance things out and give yourself the mental and physical fuel you need to keep yourself in tip top shape to deal with whatever comes!

Those are my simple tips for having a great day. If I do those things I can weather about anything that comes my way, and go home smiling!

What do you do for a great day? What is essential in your routine?

So I got to thinking about myself and why I write over here at Unusual Living. I started writing the ideas down and then when I was done I saw I had just written an about me page. So check it out here on the about me page.

I really feel like this site and what I talk about is a big part of who I am as a person. I love other things I do, but this stuff makes up a majority of the person that I am. I think a lot of you would agree as well. Many of us have jobs and things that we do lots of the time, but the family life and our everyday activities in this area make up who we are for the most part. Thanks for reading, I am excited to really be here and diving into these subjects!

Photo from Flickr by TheGiantVermin

Have you had a bad day recently? Yesterday my wife had a rough day to say the least. She felt lousy at the end of the day. I really felt for her, our kids were crazy, her husband had to work late, and nothing got done.

After our kids were finally asleep we had a chance to talk and eventually we got to the topic of the bad day. I asked her “What was the worst part?”

Her answer amazed me. “I just wasn’t the person I wanted to be today.”

Wow. Look at your most recent bad or frustrating day. Could that be the primary cause of a really bad day? The fact that you didn’t act like the person you really want to be?

This was an insightful thing for me to hear. For me my days are frustrating 99% of the time because of this.

How to overcome our weaker selves?

Make a list of the things that the person you want to be will do on a regular basis and in tough situations, especially on these bad days. Keep it close and convenient so you can be reminded frequently of what the person is like and what you need to be doing to be that person.

When things are getting rough, look at that list and see what you need to be doing instead of what you are doing.

Are you still checking your email despite the fact that your overwhelmed with not enough time to do that report or task? Act on what needs to be done now!

Children acting up and your on the verge of yelling even though you know they need a hug and 30 seconds of attention? Hand out love instead of frustration!

Worried about things in life you feel you have no control over even though you haven’t tried to change the parts of the situation that you can influence? Take small steps to influence the things you do have control over in life and huge changes will come. The changes you dream about! Good things will come to you as you build your funnel of good choices, relationships, habits, thought processes and actions over time.

Today, be the person you want to be, instead of having a “bad day” as the person you don’t want to be.

What are your best actions to change a bad day to a good one?

Are you truly committed?

Have you given all your Might, Mind, and Strength?

•    Might – Will power, and all you self control
•    Mind – All your mental abilities
•    Strength – All your physical power

When you have committed and give all of the above, you are truly committed.

Ants are truly committed to their cause, regardless of how small it may seem to anyone else. They fully commit to it for their entire existence! They put their entire might, mind, and strength into what they do.

Are we as committed?

What are you truly committed to? Are you really? Now is the time to show it.

Have you ever wondered what the secret was to living to 100 years old? How about to 110? I just finished a book called the “Blue Zones” that looks at those very questions.

“Blue Zones” author Dan Buettner looks at all the places in the world where people are more likely to live 100 years and longer. Looking closely at different lifestyle habits, locations, and several other factors he is able to nail down a few things that people are doing to consistently live longer than 100 years.

These are what he points out:

• Family – Family is put ahead of other concerns.
• No Smoking – Centenarians do not typically smoke.
• Plant-based diet – The majority of food consumed is derived from plants.
• Constant moderate physical activity – Moderate physical activity is an inseparable part of life.
• Social engagement – People of all ages are socially active and integrated into their communities.
• Legumes – Legumes are commonly consumed.

The ven diagram shows attributes of people living longer than 100 years from different areas and things that were common.

Interesting that simple things make such a big difference in an individuals longevity. Some of these are obvious health enhancers, like no smoking, but others like eating legumes I would never have guessed.

I have to comment that my family is one of my best sources of health and inspiration. I also believe that in time they will prove a source of longevity as well (I am still young, and my family younger so I can’t claim that just yet!).

Blue Zones is worth a read, it definitely opened my eyes to several things that I can do to live better!

What ideas do you have on living longer?