Just keep going
The 1st extra principle is constant practice. This means that whatever we are doing...we just keep doing it. Sounds so simple, yet often isn't. I think that often we make things hard for ourselves by trying to do too many changes or habits, or just generally complicating things.
"keep it simple"
Discernment
The next is often misunderstood, in yoga it's called vairagya, & many interpret this as 'being detached.' And this in turn is often mistaken for coldness, uncaring.
No!!! A rich, full life does have caring! And warmth! Vairagya could be called 'discernment'. This is a type of intelligence; you may understand it even better as common sense.
So, with our wonderful unique life that we are creating, it's really smart to bring common sense into play.
Make it about mattering to your life
Whatever you do, whatever you change or expend, or delete, should be relevant to:
- your life
- your own time
- your own personality
- of course, if we live with others, especially family, we take this into consideration too, as it would be wonderful that our new enriched life includes a more enriched, better, life for others also.
Smart goals
Relevance to our own life is part of smart goals, a planning system which helps us with working out whether or not something/someway is suitable for us. It goes like this:
- S stands for something that you can stick to (constant practice!)
- M stands for moderation - right for you & your life
- A is for achievable: you can do it, & enjoy it; it's not so hard that you will fail
- R is for reasonable because it will fit easily with your goals, expectations, values.
- T is time -efficient, i.e. easy to slot into your daily/weekly/monthly/etc schedule.
When we ask ourself if something we are planning to do meets these Smart criteria, & we work it out from Smart, we will be applying common sense.
Let go of expectations
The next principle may sound strange, especially to results-oriented westerners. It's non-attachment to the outcome.
How can that be?? With our always working out what we want, how it should be, how ......etc....etc, we are placing expectations upon the results. Let me assure you that the results will exceed our expectations.
By confining ourselves to 'what we want', we are placing invisible barriers to our happiness, for, as we grow & our lives become more fulfilling, the results will take us to where we are supposed to go.
When we rigidly decide what is best for ourselves, we are blocking the opportunities that our individual destiny has for us.
So we can work towards something without placing rigid expectations upon the outcome.
Whatever you do for your unique life, will keep moving along, gathering momentum if we keep our batteries charged up, so to speak:
- with constant practice
- letting go of our ideas about the outcome
- keeping it simple & doable.
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