Category: Best Version of Yourself

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Too Busy for Living?

Too Busy Doing What?

Physically—we don’t exercise regularly because we’re too busy. We don’t eat the right types of food, because they take too long to prepare, it’s too easy to go through the drive- through, and we’re too busy.

We don’t sleep regularly, because there are still only twenty-four hours in a day. We feel as though our lives have a momentum of their own, that they would go on with or without us. Our list of the things we have to do just gets longer and longer. We never feel that we get caught up; we just get more and more behind every day. Seriously, when was the last time you sat down, took a deep breath, and said to yourself, “I’m caught up now!” So we rush around late at night doing fifty- five little things before we go to bed and robbing ourselves of the precious sleep that rebuilds and rejuvenates us. Why? We are too busy.

Emotionally—most of us know that the happiest people on the planet are those who are focused in their personal relationships. Relationships thrive under one condition: carefree timelessness. Do we gift our relationships with carefree timelessness? Of course we don’t. We shove them into ten minutes here and fifteen minutes there. We give them the worst time, when we are most tired and least emotionally available. Why? We are too busy.

Intellectually—we don’t even take those ten or fifteen minutes each day to read good books that challenge us to change, to grow, and to become the- best- version- of-ourselves. Why? We don’t have time. We are too busy.

Spiritually—most people very rarely step into the classroom of silence to reconnect with themselves and their God. Why? We are afraid of what we might discover about ourselves and about our lives. We are afraid we might be challenged to change. And we are too busy.

It begs the question, doesn’t it? What are we all too busy doing? For the most part, we are too busy doing just about everything, that means just about nothing, to just about nobody, just about anywhere . . . and will mean even less to anyone a hundred years from now!

Matthew Kelly

From The Rhythm of Life
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Become a Better Version of Yourself – The Key to Great Change in Your Life

Video Transcript:

“All great change begins with imagination, all transformation begins with a vision.

Take time each day to visualize the person you are capable of becoming. If you cannot visualize the better person you wish to become, you cannot become that better person. The more specific your visualization, the faster and more effectively you will be transformed into that better version of yourself. Visualize particular ways of acting in certain situations. Imagine a situation with a particular person where you are normally impatient. Visualize the perfect way to respond to that person, over and over again in the empty moments of the day, and before too long you will begin to respond in the way you have imagined.

All great change is first an idea in our minds. The first expression of every great achievement in history has been in the wonder of the imagination. Visualize the changes you wish to achieve.

If you do not, you will not.”

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Best Lent Ever – Generosity Looks Good on You

Generosity is not passive. It’s alive and dynamic, proactive, always looking for ways to express itself. When I ask people to tell me about the most generous person they know, this is the type of thing they say, “She is always looking for opportunities to be generous.”

The most generous people I know are not just thoughtful and generous with their money and things. They are generous in every way imaginable. This all-around generosity makes them much loved by everyone who knows them and a beacon of God’s love in their community. Their generosity is proactive. They don’t wait to be asked.

Here’s an example of creative, proactive generosity. Life-changing generosity.

Anastasia Petrov is a Russian immigrant and a nurse. “I love America,” she says to me with her sixty-two-year-old smile. A few years ago, one of the nurses she works with at the hospital got cancer and had to take some time off work. Anastasia didn’t know her very well, but she knew that the other nurse had three kids and that she needed to work. Anastasia knew this woman would be out of sick days very quickly and one day at lunch Anastasia heard some of the other nurses talking about doing one of those online funding projects to help out.

“We can do better than that!” Anastasia said to her colleagues. They all turned and stared at her; you see, Anastasia was a quiet woman. She was a listener. Plenty of lunch breaks would pass without her saying a single word. “What do you mean?” one of her colleagues asked her. “Everyone loves Jane [the sick nurse]. She is always doing kind things for people. We all have three twelve-hour shifts a week; all we need to do is find three nurses to volunteer an extra shift each week and Jane can keep getting paid until she is well and can come back to work.”

The other nurses stared at her with astonishment and admiration. “I’ll organize the schedule,” Anastasia added. And so she did. Each week while Jane was out of work, Anastasia found three nurses to do an extra shift so that Jane could continue to be paid her full salary.

I learned about this from Sophia, another nurse at the hospital. “How long was Jane off work?” I asked. “Three years!” Sophia replied with a smile. “Anastasia is amazing,” she continued.

This was life-changing generosity. It was creative and proactive.

Now, here is today’s generosity habit.

Make someone’s day! Go out of your way to do something to make someone’s day today. You don’t need me to tell you what to do. The creative genius of generosity is alive and well within you. Seek its counsel and follow where the spirit of generosity leads you. It doesn’t have to be something spectacular. Small and simple acts of generosity can make people’s day.

Matthew Kelly

//Dynamic Catholic//

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The Power of Single-Tasking

“The fastest way to do many things is to do them one at a time.

The ability to focus for extended periods of time is a very powerful skill, and one that is become increasingly rare in our society. People who are able to focus on one thing at a time have a major advantage in a world crippled by multi-tasking. Single-tasking is a skill worth nurturing.

The power of single-tasking is that it forces us to decide what matters most and give it priority. This unleashes positive effects on every area of our lives.

Here are some of the benefits of single-tasking. People who focus on one task at a time are happier, less anxious, more productive, have more energy and enthusiasm, are more fulfilled, less stressed, more creative, more disciplined, have longer attention spans, are better communicators, and they have better relationships.

What exactly is single-tasking? The practice of dedicating oneself to a given task and minimizing potential interruptions and distractions for the appropriate period of time.

Multi-tasking is ruining our brains, destroying our lives, and undermining our relationships. Single-tasking is the key to doing your best work, improving your relationships, and eliminating much of the stress and anxiety from your life.

Multi-tasking is a temptation and a myth. The busier you are, the more you have to do, the more you should employ single-tasking. Try doing one thing at a time, through to completion. You’ll be amazed just how powerful this simple principle is. Start unleashing the power of single-tasking in your life today.”

//Dynamic Catholic//

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Multi-Tasking is a Myth

“Have you been feeling anxious lately? Multitasking may be the cause.

The truth is, there is no such thing as multi-tasking. We may think we are doing two things at once, but what we are actually doing is switching rapidly from one task and another. It is simply impossible to do two things at once. The human mind can only focus on one thing at a time.

This bouncing back and forth between tasks (that we call multitasking) is massively inefficient. You actually get less done and the quality of what you get done suffers. What we call multi-tasking leads to more mistakes, less creativity, lower productivity, and is one of the main causes of anxiety in our lives today.

The sad thing is multitasking has taken over our lives. A study conducted by Harvard Psychologists discovered that on average people spend 47% of their waking hours thinking about something other than what they are actually doing. This includes the time we spend with the people we love the most.

On average, people spend 40% of their day multitasking with email and instant messages alone. Most people cannot go for more than six minutes without checking their messages. Studies have found that the average person switches tasks every 3 minutes.

Mark Twain observed, “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” Multi-tasking is a myth.

//Dynamic Catholic//