Friendship
How to be a better friend in life? How to be better with others, to my wife, my family and myself? Engage in more conversation! And be mindful of what is useful conversation and what is wasteful. Wasteful I say is that which has tones of negativity or is of no purpose nor benefit to either party or the topic of conversation itself.
Engage in the sharing of possessions and knowledge. Never hold on to “stuff” purely for self-gain. We do not own it anyway and this kind of selfishness never truly leads to any real benefit. If it is useful for progress and useful for another’s progress then share and practice good conversation. This will help evolve friendship.
I am today on a new path. I will endeavour to get into a good routine and become better at observation. Not to get lost in consumption and unhealthy self-absorption. More good practice and less wasteful practice. In doing so, perhaps I will be able to be a better friend, to others and myself.
Daily Journals – Thoughts, Reflections & Meditations by Leigh Martinuzzi
5 Tips to Get Over a Creative Block
Narrated by Leigh Martinuzzi
Everyone knows the feeling of being stuck every once in a while—whether you’re a writer piecing together a novel, or an artist stumped for inspiration. In fact, even if you love your job, it’s still possible (and completely normal) to hit a block. However, not everything is a sign that you should give up and throw in the towel. Sometimes, all you need is to take a step back and re-assess your current situation. More than anything, it’s an opportunity to come back even more focused and realigned.
If that sounds like you, here are five things you can do to get over a creative block.
Quality of Life – A Journey of Joy and Suffering
Poverty is no laughing matter. I am fortunate and grateful to have been born into the life I have. Others are not so fortunate. This is not about comparing one’s set of circumstances to another’s. In this blog, I wish to share my thoughts about how we can escape the funk that we perceive our life to be in order to start living a meaningful and purposeful existence. I will share some ideas on how I think we can all shift our attention away from all the shit we tend to focus on towards more intentional thoughts. With that in place may our actions and behaviours be altered and the life we live, well… happier.
Switch Off the News
Happiness, love, gratitude, smile, emotional, glee, confident, excited, powerful, strong, hope.
These are just a few words that can represent positive self-enhancement and heightened feelings of positivity. They are empowering words. The language we use and are exposed to has a significant impact on our emotions and overall wellbeing.
When we use empowering words, we feel more alive, energetic, positive, confident and this has a greater flow-on effect to the impact we have on others and in our own lives. These words tend to create a positive outlook in life, a positive mindset. People who have this kind of mindset I have no doubt have more abundance in their lives across the board.
Now try these. Hate, anger, shy, nervous, murder, uncertainty, lonely, disappointed, fear, dangerous.
While there are many more negative words that we could use, I use these to highlight and differentiate empowering and disempowering language. Consumption and use of disempowering words can lead to a bleaker world view. They don’t motivate, they discourage. They are limiting to one’s self-belief. They create tension and unease in life, both internally and externally.
if choose to surround ourselves with the positive, we live with the positive. If we choose to surround ourselves with the negative, we live with the negative. We may not always be able to escape the negative, it’s a natural part of life that sometimes we must embrace. However, it doesn’t mean we need to be, do or have more negativity in our lives unnecessarily.
A free, fulfilled and happy life is one that is positive and empowering, not negative and depressing. The type of language we use is but one example of the pros and cons of positive and negative consumption. Daily news is tailored towards the negative. It sucks us in and the detrimental effects news consumption has on the positivity of our lives is huge.
Switch off the news!
Do you want to live a meaningful, happy and fulfilled life? Of course, you do! I do not suggest those that watch the news have unhappy or unfulfilled. However, after turning off the news, which I watched daily morning and night, I witnessed some huge positive shifts happen in my life.
My objective is not to ridicule or criticise others as to how they live. If you like digesting nightly news, do it. My objective is to inspire those who by reading this will see how the news might be worse than good for their lives and to encourage a 21 day “No News Challenge.”
You may read this and feel that the news and its effect on your life are neither bad or good but perhaps wasteful and therefore another good reason to switch it off. What if it could help improve your life beyond what you thought imaginable. I believe it can!
The news is not just on the TV, it’s in the papers, magazines and even comes to us through the people we associate with. We go back to it because it’s designed to hook us in. The negative news may make our life someone seem better. It may be entertaining to some degree. And it’s all-consuming.
We may think it’s good to stay tuned in with current affairs but what do we do with that information we consume. Do we use it to make a difference? Do we learn from it? Do we believe that if we are up to date with what’s going on in the world we are somehow better off? More educated, informed and therefore better able to make important decisions about our lives? Do we consume it and do nothing but feel shitty and carry that negative information with us throughout the day?
What is the purpose of our time spent watching the news?
Do you rely on the news to live your life? Does it help you in your career? Add inspiration to your day? Does it support your family? Help you learn? Fulfil desires or help uphold some of your passions? I suppose if you are a news reporter than staying up to date with the news would be pretty important, you’re excused.
Let’s be honest. Most news is not good news. It doesn’t inspire us. It doesn’t make our lives better. We don’t go out and act on it to try and make some positive change. And regardless of how much things improve it is human nature to find more negative news stories to latch onto these.
Life across many categories, if not all, is much better than ever before. Yet, turn on the news and you wouldn’t think so. Disasters, murders, tragedy, greed, corruption, whatever, those news people will find a way to bring a little negativity into our daily lives. It does us no good. Switch it off.
The news is a fear medium. It’s the kind of medium that generally does not excite us but rather upsets us. The news is generally full of rubbish and negative shit that is not positive or constructive to how well we live our life. If anything, it’s detrimental.
Like those negative words I started with, the news is disempowering and will, without a doubt in my mind, be reflected in the way we live our lives. When we watch the news we absorb all that negativity and this directly reflects in our thoughts that in turn how we act.
We may watch the news about the struggles being faced in a war-torn foreign country. It’s nice to care but what are we doing about it to make a change. Sure, some people take action but for most of us we don’t and the resulting negative impact that this can have on our lives and others around us are not favourable.
It is great to care but caring is only as good as the action you are willing to take. I can go on caring all day but if I don’t take the appropriate action all the caring in the world won’t mean shit.
How many people do you think after watching that snippet of news on the war get up and say “that is it, I am taking the next plane there and going to help out”? Not too many I am sure. And what do we do instead? We dwell on this negativity that exists in the world. For some it produces emotions of sadness for others anger and hate, for some of us, it paints a bleak outlook as to the future of the world and where it’s heading. For some, it may lead to depression.
This intensifies as we go into our day, as we chat to others in our lives, spreading the negativity, like bees spreading pollen. Hate creates more hate! Love creates more love! And I believe life is all about love, not hate. The news is a good source of hate.
Still not convinced? Then I’d like to suggest a challenge. Try not watching the news for 21 days. You could even go so far as to going without TV entirely. Personally, I still enjoy a good movie, documentary or Netflix series but I avoid regular TV and the news as best I can.
Why 21 days? I’m not entirely sure but I believe some habits can be changed in 21 days and 3 weeks in the bigger scheme of things is not a heck of a long time. It’s achievable.
What to do instead? Go join a group, do the Zumba, join toastmasters, go to the gym and work out in a group, have more lattes with mates. Read a book, read something inspiring, read a novel. Just do something that won’t affect your emotions, thoughts and actions in such a negative way.
Spend time with family, play a board game, go for a hike, go for a walk, paint a picture, write, I like to write. Whatever you do stop watching the news because all this does is lead to more negativity in a world already full of negativity. Instead, spend your time searching for the positives of life.
Are you up for it? I wish you the best.
Clarity and Virtue
The New Year begins. A new decade. After taking a couple off weeks of work, a little partying, perhaps a little too much, however, I backed it up with some much-needed rest and relaxation I feel refreshed and ready to tackle 2020.
I’ve decided this year to choose one word to define the kind of year I wish to live. That word for me is ‘Clarity’. As I wrote this, I feel very clear and yet appreciate there is still some haze and cloudiness that I wish to vanquish. This one word, I hope, will give this year purpose.
What Holds Us Back
Written and narrated by Leigh Martinuzzi
Mindset – the established set of assumptions, attitudes or methods held by one or more people or groups of people. It can relate to an incident, world view or philosophy of life.
Psychologist, Carol Dweck, discovered after decades of research that people can be defined by two mindsets and that is the fixed and the growth mindset.
It’s very simple to grasp the concept but what more interesting is how these mindsets that we hold can influence and shape our lives. They can be the cause for much pain in life and the reason many of us get held back or avoid things. Alternatively, they can propel us to achieve levels in life that we may never have thought would be attainable.
6 Ways to Keep Your Career Motivation Strong Over the Holidays
Written by Laura Gayle and Narrated by Leigh Martinuzzi
Let’s face it: The holidays can be far from a relaxing break from work, school, or other aspects of daily life. Instead, it’s often a time when many things speed up. Between attending (or hosting) parties, going to work gatherings, seeing family, keeping kids busy, and shopping for groceries and gifts, you’ll pretty much find disruption every time you turn around. (more…)
Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 6 Tips to Success
Written and narrated by Leigh Martinuzzi (originally published Mar 13, 2015)
I grew up watching Arnie movies! To many of us, he is a bit of a legend. With great lines like “get to the chopper”, and “I’ll be back”, one of the most quoted movie lines ever, I believe that he has certainly worked hard to achieve success across his various careers. For sure, like anyone, he probably has traits not to be admired and had an equal share of challenges and turmoil, that’s a given. However, from the success that he has had there is a thing or two we could most certainly learn. (more…)
7 Ways to Live Your Values Everyday
Written by Ellie Coverdale. Narrated by Leigh Martinuzzi
It’s important not only to know your personal core values but also how to apply them in your daily life. By living your values every day, you’ll find that you’re happier and more successful and living a more authentic life. The trick is to adopt behaviors that will keep them front and centre. Here are the 7 best ways to live your values every day.
Simple Steps To Becoming Self-Motivated
Written by Ashley Field. Narrated by Leigh Martinuzzi
Nobody wants to have to rely on others to motivate themselves – as humans, we are social creatures and often like communicating and giving each other ‘pep talks’ to cheer our friends up and keep everyone moving through life. However, this isn’t always possible, and sometimes you need the internal power to be able to motivate yourself.
Blog
thoughts, ideas, inspiration, motivation, mindset, productivity, passion, purpose, lifestyle, work-life integration & other dribble.
