Without your health nothing else matters anyway

Joshua The Minimalist

Podcast 017 | Health | The Minimalists

 Is it possible:
Plants
Vegetables - avo, spinach, broccoli, green leafy,
Fish - grilled salmon
Nuts - Almonds
Seeds
Black coffee
Herbal Tea
2.5 liters of water per day
Add a green drink

Intermittent fasting - eat twice a day at 11am and 6pm
No breakfast.

Multivitamins
Vit B complex
Fish oil

Don't look at a screen after 7pm
Get plenty of sleep

DO NOT EAT:
Bread
Pasta
Candy
Sugar - quit sugar
Meat
Lobster / crabs - bottom dwelling rubbish
Diary - cheese, milk, yoghurt (very small amounts once or twice a week)
Beans and Legumes if your body can process them.
Nothing processed or packaged
No fruit juice
Really limit fruit - blueberries are great

18 mins of Body Exercise - Push ups, Pull ups, Squats. 3 sets of each, work hard
Walk and weight training.
Do exercise before eating.
Only do exercises you like. If you don't like running then don't run.
Exercise reduces stress.
Variety of exercises to keep you fresh.

Be less stressed - be aware of the triggers of stress.
To combat depression, anger and sadness.
Most stressed out as we try to achieve, achieve and achieve. Change my priorities, change my focus, Lock yourself in the bathroom for 30sec  and pull stupid faces, jump up and down, grin and you will change your state and you will no longer be stressed. Change in your physiology.

Change diet, embrace healthy lifestyle.
Do not look at food as entertainment, food is fuel. Enjoy the people, be entertained by the people not by the food. 
Turn to food to power your body.
DO not turn to food to get you through tough times.

Declutter your health, relationships, passion, contribution, growth.

If you don't have your health you will not be able to enjoy the other areas. Diet and Exercise then sleep. Daily meditation.
Health is a vehicle not a destination. Take care of the vehicle that you have.
Health is a tool to get where we are doing.
Be the healthiest version of myself.
You can continue to improve the vehicle in which you are traveling.
Continue to grow to be healthier.

https://www.happier.com/blog/the-10-commandments-of-happiness?from=article_latest_posts
Throw kindness around like confetti.
Smile your designed to.
Talk about your joys, not about your problems.
A good laugh and a long sleep are the 2 best cures for anything.
Go outside and get some sunshine.

Does it bring me JOY???

Struggling to declutter - yes, yes, yes!!!
How to define if an item brings me joy or not???

Everything is laid out in piles same/same together but where to begin with knowing 'joy' from an item or emotion or guilt over the money paid or guilt that the item was gifted to me from a loved on or a place previously worked with fond memories. aaarrrggghhhh

https://www.happier.com/blog/5-life-changing-lessons-the-konmari-decluttering-method-taught-me

Nataly Kogan

Marie Kondo wants you to answer just one simple question when it comes to any of the items in your house:
Does it bring you joy?
If you answer yes, you keep the item. If you hesitate or say no, you donate it or throw it out. It’s simple, it’s brilliant, and it’s something that's completely intuitive. You can spend a lot of time justifying how something might at some point be useful to you and therefore decide to keep it, but whether something brings you joy is an emotional question and one that can be answered almost instantly: If you feel joy or if you don’t feel joy: there's no need to make it more complicated than that.

1. Joy is simple yet powerful. Marie Kondo asks you to take all of your clothes and put them in one big pile in one room. (Her idea is to declutter by item type vs. by room.) You then pick up and hold an item and ask yourself one simple question: Does this bring me joy? What I realized in my bedroom as I faced my giant clothing pile was that joy is both really simple and really powerful. As I held up each piece of clothing, I didn’t have to think for a long time about whether it brought me joy: I either felt it or I didn’t. If I hesitated, I knew it was not joy but rather some version of shopping guilt (“Well, I should have worn this more..” or “I paid a lot for this and haven’t worn it"). While it was difficult to put a bunch of barely-ever-worn clothes into my "donate" pile due to the shopping guilt, I found the decision process itself really easy: Joy is a simple filter we can apply to a lot of things, beyond clothes or stuff. We know it when we feel it, it’s strong and vibrant, and it can be a really great lens through which to view other life-choices.

2. There are different ways to bring joy. I loved Kondo’s advice about dealing with the sense of regret you might feel when you have to donate that neon pink dress with the tags still on it [substitute whatever article of clothing you were excited to buy but never really wore]. Perhaps the dress brought you joy when you bought it and at that moment you felt the thrill of the shopping-hunt and thinking about ways you were going to wear it. If so, Kondo says, that's great -- that item of clothing has served its purpose: it brought you joy at some point. Now you can remember that and put it into the donation pile without guilt.

3. We don’t hang on to things; we hang on to emotions attached to those things. Some of the clothes I found easy to put in the donate pile -- they didn’t bring me joy any more, I didn’t really like them, and I felt good about parting with them. But some I really struggled with. For instance, there was a pair of jeans that I probably hadn't worn in about seven years, but at the time I bought them I was going through some major life changes. Those jeans remind me of that time, of what I was feeling then, and I realized that while I'd probably never wear them again I'd kept them in an attempt to hang on to those emotions I'd connected them to. The jeans were just jeans; but the emotions they'd elicited were what I was hanging on to. When I put them in the donation pile on my floor, I felt a huge sense of freedom and relief -- giving away a pair of pants was a way to let go of feelings I no longer needed carry with me.

4. Fewer things you love is better than many things you kinda like. I’ve always wanted to be like those really stylish French women who have a few perfectly-tailored outfits they wear with flawless ease, and whose closets are the epitome of style and quality. Well, I'm not French, and that’s a fantasy, but I can tell you this: Having a closet full of clothes I really love, even when there are less of them, is a huge improvement over having a closet filled with a lots of clothes I only just kind of like. And here’s what really surprised me: When I was done decluttering I didn’t want to run out and shop for new clothes. I had less than before -- I estimate that I donated about a quarter of all my clothes and shoes -- but I was so much happier with what I now had that I lacked that familiar desire to chase something new. What an unexpected benefit and a huge lesson.

5. It’s not about what others think. At some point during my decluttering process I put on a black sweater I’ve had forever and showed it to my daughter and husband. They both gave me their thumbs-up-that-looks-awesome approval, so I put the sweater back in my closet. But it kept nagging at me so I picked it up again and asked myself out loud: "Does this really bring me joy?" No, it didn’t. I really liked that my husband and kiddo liked it, and positive emotions from others are always important, but when it comes to joy -- about what you’re wearing, or what you're eating, or what you're doing with your life -- you have to feel it yourself. If you don’t, it doesn’t much matter what others think: their joy is not a substitute for your own.

Does it bring you joy? A simple and incredibly powerful question to ask about everything in our lives, beyond mere clothes and books and stuff. I felt hugely inspired to make this question a constant part of my life and I hope you will, too.

Choose Happiness and Follow your Dreams

- focus on what's important
- let go of what doesn't work
- break one bad habit
- learn one new skill
- forsake perfection
- choose happiness
- sleep well
- exercise 5 days a week
- eat fruit and veg daily
- drink more water
- quit sugar
- have hope
- hopeful of a relationship
- see the good
- choose to be kind over being right
- say 'I love you more'
- smile, breathe, laugh
- mindfulness daily practice
- no alcohol and soft drinks for 1 year
- reduce screen/internet/fb time
- travel with family and friends to get closer again
- spend xmas with family again
- join boot camp twice a week with group
- meditation/yoga retreat
- plank challenge often
- squat challenge often
- use skipping rope more
- evening sunset walks
- read more
- daily brain training
- seek a humanitarian paying job
- enjoy teaching
- 10-30 min planning and focus session almost every morning
- do more nature escape days to refocus and being creative
- study and learn more to inspire and give more
- wake up faster and do more energy breaks
- de-clutter house contents

Goal Setting

Goal Setting – Health and Fitness
What are your goals for this year?  When we arrive at December 2016, will you be able to look back and tell yourself you’ve had a fantastic year and have made progress towards optimizing your health?  What would you like to be able to see, feel, or do?

In December 2016 I want to be able to look back and say wow:

* I made life changes to increase my connections to nature
* Each week I found the time to be outdoors - living and breathing fresh air
* Cycling, trekking, camping, enjoying the freedom and open spaces
* I took the time to declutter personal possessions to create more freedom with my time.
* The decluttering wasn't always easy but it was essential to enure my possessions didn't own me.
* I found many ways to let go, live a more simple joyful life.
* A life that I now have more control over.
* To be excited about each day, live in the present, to sleep well not surrounded by clutter.
* All that remains - items that bring me joy and have a function in my life.

 ** Then add all the standards goals -  find my balance between 65kg -70kg, work out most days, ride bike regularly, drink lots of water, eat healthy foods. moderation.

The first step to achieving something is to write it down and then make a plan to get there.  If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll wind up someplace else.  Set yourself:

•    1-3 long term goals (6-12 months)
•    Break each one down to medium term goals (3 months)
•    Break these down to short term goals (4 weeks)
•    Set weekly targets to help you reach your short term goals – 1 step at a time!
•    Set daily habits and actions that will help you reach your weekly targets

Your goals need to be SMARTE:  SPECIFIC, MEASURABLE, ACHIEVABLE, RELEVANT, TIME SPECIFIC and EXCITING.
They should be stated positively, be things you have control over and be things that YOU want, not that others want.  You must have a clear understanding of why your goal is important to you.  If you have a strong emotional driver there will be a far greater likelihood of success.

What a great idea - it's in USA - I bet Aust must have some of these. What about Beechworth.
 
http://www.duvine.com/coffee-bikes-and-beer-bicycle-bars-and-cycling-cafes-across-america/

http://www.cyclestyle.com.au/bikes-beer-bridge-road-brewers-beechworth/
http://www.traveller.com.au/bikes-bumps-and-brews-2710z

"We're striving for that overall philosophy here as well," Brandon says. "Everyone's not just here to run a business - it's a lifestyle thing. All of the brewers mountain-bike, so it's an obvious match. And we're just in this little pocket where we really do get more than our fair share of blue sunny days, which is perfect for what we like to do."
The trails stretch from the Warby Ranges near Glenrowan to the town of Mount Beauty, at the foot of Victoria's highest peak, Mount Bogong. It's here that I begin my visit, on the Survey Track, with Sweetwater brewer Pete Hull.

"Originally the concept for the Brewery Trail was just about making people aware that there were breweries here, and that they could actually do a loop of them," Kraus says as we ride. "We were looking to find a link to cycling and we were well aware that on weekends, lots of our customers had already been out mountain-biking and they were coming in for lunch afterwards. It was already something that was happening and we were just wanting to strengthen that link."

Read more: http://www.traveller.com.au/bikes-bumps-and-brews-2710z#ixzz45PvbJlFQ
Follow us: @TravellerAU on Twitter | TravellerAU on Facebook

Create the Weekend everyday - there's no such thing as bad weather!!!

It dawned on me - can I find a way to live everyday like it's the weekend?
What do I enjoy doing on the weekends?
relaxing
cycling 60-100km
having a massage
mindfulness / meditation
catching up on emails
reading
socializing

Then instead of living for the weekends, it would be the weekend all the time. What a great philosophy!
trekking,
mountain walks,
cycling
camping,
sunrise, sunsets,
disconnect from technology,
reconnect to nature
swim in streams,
listen to the birds,

Nature School Port Macquarie

At some point in your day, or in the very least your week, aim to extend the outdoors notion by ensuring you’re also in nature…barefoot if possible!  Give your feet a proper stretch and wake up the muscles that are less active whilst wearing shoes.  Enjoy being connected with the natural world and take the opportunity to be fully present – smell a flower, feel the dirt between your toes and marvel at the intricacies of a leaf.
And finally…never mind the weather!  There is no such thing as ‘bad weather’,  just inappropriate clothing.  So splash in those puddles; let the rain refresh you, and enjoy the wind through your hair.
Elly McGuinness

Create Significance

Due to my time constraints I'm just tagging Becoming Minimalist and I'll return here later.
Creating significance is really resonating with me lately. Time to give up the pursuit of success and change pathways!!!

Becomingminimalist - Trade up - create significance

Our lives hold far greater potential than the comfort and luxury most of us trade them for. After all, these are temporal pursuits that can never be fully achieved. They move and shift rapidly with the world around us. They never fully satisfy. They are completely self-centered. And our lives can be traded for things far greater.

Our lives can be traded for significance, social justice, or spiritual pursuits. We can invest our lives into creating a more sustainable planet, beautiful art, moments of joy for others, or causes we believe in. We can help others overcome fear, heartache, or significant obstacles to joy. We can trade our finite resources for the desires and values held deep within each of our hearts – the purest passions unspoiled by the culture around us.
We were created to live for pursuits far greater than comfort, luxury, and competition.
We were created to trade our lives up, not down.

Seek significance

“I cannot believe that the purpose of life is to be happy. I think the purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to be compassionate. It is, above all to matter, to count, to stand for something, to have made some difference that you lived at all.” —Leo Rosten

On the other hand, compare the advantages of significance:

• Significance always lasts. Significance will always outlast you. Even when you are no longer present, your significance will still be yours. And nothing can ever take that away from you.
• Significance carries on. Significance keeps on giving. When you positively change the life of another human being…  and that person changes the life of another… who impacts the life of another… who influences another…
• Significance satisfies our soul. While the thirst for success is never quenched, significance satisfies our deepest heart and soul. It allows us to lay our head on our pillow each night confident that we lived a valuable and fulfilling day.

The Gift of Giving

I had a really good idea for this post earlier in the day, now it's time to write I can't remember the 'really good idea' so does that mean that it wasn't that good??

In my quest to declutter I had a decent stack of teacher resource books. I didn't want to just dump them off since I was sure someone in the country would actually find them really useful. I contacted a friend, she came over and loved the books. She offered to pay for them, no it's ok - just take them and put them to good use!!
She left very happy, I was thrilled to see the books leave along with sheets, towels, bath mats and tea towels that I just don't need. It was a great feeling just to give and not expect anything in return.

When in reality I did receive something - a small step closer to my own freedom, when less is more.