Joy and Balance

Have You Caught the Gratitude Virus? Could You Be Spreading It?

Scott Mills, Ph.D.

The power of gratitude is nothing short of amazing!  When we focus on what we do have in our lives, from our health, to people who love us, or even things as simple as being pain free or breathing freely, we come back to the present.  We stop regretting the past and anticipating the future. And this power can be contagious. 

In a workshop led by visionaries Matthew and Terses Engelhart, the founders of Cafe Gratitude who are teachers and guides internationally, I witnessed a very powerful experiment.  At lunch we were asked to share with three people what we were grateful for that day.  Many were nervous at approaching someone else (overcoming their stranger danger) but upon returning many, many stories were shared of how this small practice opened up the teller and invited the hearer to reflect on their own sense of gratitude.  It became a gratitude virus.  Have you spread the gratitude virus today?  Try sharing what you are grateful for with three people everyday for a week and see how this tiny practice begins to shift you life!

Scott Mills,Ph.D. is an expert in the world of work life balance.  As a life coach and consultant he works to create passion, purpose and power in the lives of extraordinary people just like you. You can read more of his blogs or find out more about him at www.joyandbalance.com

Allowing Your Success Momentum to Carry You Forward

Scott Mills, Ph.D.

For most of us where there is a new challenge in our lives, like finding a new job or learning a new skill, there is a nagging little voice in the back of our heads that tells us that we can’t do it.   It probably is busy inventorying all the ways that you have failed in your life and the many ways that you might just fail in your new venture.

But unless you were born yesterday, literally, you’ve had way more success in your life than you are probably giving yourself credit for.  Doing a success inventory and keeping it nearby when you hear those nagging thoughts is a great way to boost your confidence and remind yourself how capable you are of succeeding.

A success inventory is simple.  From your earliest childhood memories to the present, make a list of a minimum of 101 successes that you have had in your life.  Starting out small, you learned to walk and to talk, you probably learned to ride a bike and swim.  You may have graduated from high school or college.  Take the time now to do this inventory and post it somewhere you can see it.  Your new challenge is being backed up by a great wave of success.  Simply let your current challenge be the next one!

Scott Mills,Ph.D. is an expert in the world of work life balance.  As a life coach and consultant he works to create passion, purpose and power in the lives of extraordinary people just like you. You can read more of his blogs or find out more about him at www.joyandbalance.com

If the Buddha Got Fat: A Mindful Path to Weight Loss and Abundant Health

Scott Mills, Ph.D.

In the West, we have adopted a feast (literally) or famine mentality to health.  We seem to either eat whatever we want to, whenever we want to or we starve ourselves to lose it all.   After experiencing both the life of luxury in his father’s palace and then the life of an ascetic starving himself away, Buddha came to what he called the Middle Way.   No where is a middle way more needed than in our relationship to diet and health.

As a life coach, I am very familiar with helping people make change in their lives.  And I know that the feast or famine approach doesn’t work.  Neither does relying on the authority of whatever latest health guru has published a diet suggesting you eat nothing but watermelon or everything but bacon.   As Dr. Dean Ornish has found repeatedly in studies funded by the National Institute of Health, Mutual of Omaha Insurance and other scientific bodies, we can decrease our weight and increase our health so that we feel more energetic, more flexible and stronger when we have the right tools and support.

Inviting Change with Gratitude: Mindful Practices to Create Change in Your Life

Scott Mills, Ph.D.

In the Western world we are suffering from destination addiction.  We are always trying to reach the finish line and often don’t even notice as we round the track.   When we reach the goal we rarely spend much time appreciating it.   Rather we take off for the next goal.

But what if you don’t reach the goal?  Does that mean that no learning, no living, no growth happens along the way?  For many, the answer is yes.   This narrow view of looking at the world not only robs the joy from our lives it also closes us down to the many opportunities we miss along the way while we are not paying attention.  One of the most powerful things we can do to foster positive change in our lives is to pay attention to it as it happens.  Here are four suggestions for how you can do that more often.

One Breath at a Time: Supporting Mindful Change through Structure

Scott Mills, Ph.D.

One of the best ways to ensure failure is not to plan for success.   While I am a big fan of setting our intention and hoping for the best, we can do a lot more than that to make sure that the changes we initiate in our lives last. 

In my work with clients, we use what’s called an integral model of change.   It means that for change to be lasting in has to address four major ways that people are in the world: their heads and hearts, their bodies, their communities and their environment.  Preparing some ways to support yourself through your efforts and those of your friends and family can make the difference between a wished for change and a realized change.

Being the Change You Wish to See in the World: A Different Kind of Resolution

Scott Mills, Ph.D.

Making radical changes in our lives often come from seemingly small places.  In a call catching up with a good friend the other day she told me that this year she was creating the possibility for herself to be joy.   She had shifted her thinking around joy from something to be acquired (outside herself) to something to be lived (always accessible).  This small change in thinking embodies the words of Gandhi when he said “to be the change you want to see in the world” and it provides a powerful example to us all.  Changing our perspective can change our lives overnight.

Choosing Hope in the New Year: Acting "As If"

Scott Mills, Ph.D.

 I don’t know about you, but I don’t have any particularly strong psychic powers.  I don’t know what the New Year will bring.  In fact, I don’t know what the new day will bring.  What I do know is that when I have strong expectations then I often see the things that confirm them.   Acknowledging this, every day before I get out of bed I say a prayer of thanks (to any and all those who are listening including my dog) for another day and set my intention for it to be filled with learning and joy.   And most of the time that works pretty well.   When it doesn’t I rely on a concept that psychologists sometimes call “Acting As If.”    This is the basic notion that when we act “as if” something is so then we often create the circumstances for that to happen.   As we approach the New Year, even on those days that we have listened to one too many economists (whose powers of prognostication have seemed pretty limited lately as well), we can choose hope and possibility if we choose to act “as if” they are already here!

Making Change Last: Addressing Deep Patterns and Finding Peace

Scott Mills, Ph.D

    No matter what we are trying to create in our lives, when we change directions it is important to ask whether there are some deeper patterns that are affecting our progress.   These are places where we leak our power and potential and end up feeling frustrated in the process.  It’s a bit like trying to fill up a bucket that has a hole in it.   No matter how hard you try, your efforts won’t have the affect you want until you fix the hole.  There are three main holes that are worth your attention as you fill your life full of your dreams.

The Poetry of Purpose and the Juiciness of Waking Up!

Scott Mills, Ph.D.

 As I was reflecting on how I work with people to help them see their sense of purpose, a dear friend sent the following poem from David Whyte.  It reminded me that finding our sense of purpose is a lot like waking up.  So many of us have been asleep to who we are and what we are all about.  The only option is to wake up. 

    It is not, however, just to wake up to the mundane, to the ordinary, to the shrill cry of our alarm signaling another empty day but rather to the fullness of life.  We wake up to our full potential when we claim our purpose and our place in the human family!

A Big Enough Vision to Succeed!

“Learn to recognize the counterfit coins          
 That may buy you just a moment of pleasure,
 But then drag you for days
 Like a broken man
 Behind a farting camel.” Hafiz

Scott Mills, Ph.D.

For many of us, our world has become quite small. In the midst of the great global information highway and multinational corporations, the possibility of eating foods from around the world in our own backyard, and instant news casts telling us of the latest from the smallest corners of the globe, we have gotten lost. It isn’t hard to feel powerless and nearly invisible in this world. What can you do that really matters? So we go about living small lives and hope someone else will do something to save us. Margaret Mead is famous for saying, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” We still have the power to change the world even if only one person at a time. Having a big enough vision for ourselves creates the space to do that.