Tag Archives: find delight

Forget whistling…SMILE while you work!

June 12, 2018Career, Every day lifefamily photos, find delight, happiness, job hacks, laughter, something to look forward toBeth Berger

When it comes to enjoying our daily lives, often it’s the smallest things that have the most positive impact. Earning your paycheck after working for two weeks is great, but that smile and warm hug from someone you helped could make your entire week (and more!). These little moments are the things to truly live for. They can help us stay positive and learn to find delight.

For this reason, I’d love to know – how many things make you smile in a day? Would counting them somehow impede your natural tendency to smile? Would simply adding more things in your life to help you do so improve your life even in the small matters? There are many things to give you that toothy grin, but the following can help:

Something To Love

It’s important to keep something you love around you at all times. Of course, family is usually the first thing people think of when the word ‘love’ comes to mind, and so in these instances, it might be worth keeping a picture of your loved ones on your work desk or kicking it old school with some wallet-sized prints.

Continually reminding yourself of who you love in any given day might not only feel wonderful, but it can help you remember the reason for your daily efforts in the first place. Experience a bad day at work? Simply seeing your newlywed wife’s photograph might help you get through it that little bit easier.

Something To Excite

It’s important to stay excited in life. This might mean looking forward to a vacation, becoming part of a new community, or anticipating the moment you break a fitness PR in the gym after work. When you have things to look forward to, you will feel much more infused with positive energy, and it also helps you stay engaged in the world around you.

Something To Laugh

Something that makes you laugh can be essential to keeping your mindset happy and open. Laughter has the wonderful ability to connect people and help them forget their issues. This might be as simple as telling your boyfriend a silly joke from time to time, checking out stand-up comedy and finding some favorites in that field, or spicing up your office with things that help you crack a grin. (These novelty desk plates are always a crowd favorite.) Laughter shows us that the world isn’t as self-serious as we thought, and can honestly lift our spirits quite unlike everything else.

What little things make you smile throughout your day? Do you consider yourself a happy person? Do you think surrounding yourself with things to love, excite, and laugh about would make you a more effective worker? Why or why not?

Are You Spiritual?

May 8, 2018Every day life, Personalattentiveness, compassion, find delight, life hack, presence, spiritualityBeth Berger

*This post may contain affiliate links.*

Readers, do you consider yourself spiritual? No matter what you believe, I’ve sorta come to the conclusion that as long as you are happy to take what works for you and put the rest aside, you will find there is great benefit to be had from living in a more spiritually aware manner. Whatever that may mean to you. For some people that’s weekly trips to church, others it might mean a daily mantra practice, or setting out into nature alone with your thoughts once a month.

Here are three spiritual practices I try and incorporate in my life —

Keep Your Eyes Open

It can be amazing what you miss when you aren’t really looking – and by that same token, what you can see when you make a concentrated effort to keep your eyes open. Keeping your eyes open simply means you are on the lookout for anything which might spark joy…or delight ;). [I talk more in depth about how I incorporate this practice HERE.]

A friend of mine pointed out that when she started living this way, she was surprised by how the same things cropped up over and over again. So often that they began to feel significant. Her advice? Whether it’s the recurrence of specific angel numbers, a certain theme that seems to reappear in your relationships, or anything – whatever it is, pay attention and see what you can learn from it.

Spread Compassion

Something else which all spiritual traditions share is a focus on helping others and spreading joy and compassion towards them. Learning to do this in your daily life takes time, effort and courage – but you will find that doing so really does make for a much more fulfilling life. If you find that there is some kind of blockage stopping you from doing this, then you might want to think about what you can do to make it easier for yourself. In most cases, it begins with first spreading joy to yourself – so that you can then be more compassionate to those around you. You know what RuPaul says, right? “If you can’t love yourself how in the hell are you gonna love somebody else?” CAN I GET AN AMEN?

Remain Present

One tenet most spiritual traditions agree upon is remaining present as a way to feel more in tune with reality and more at peace. Presence is hard to fully comprehend until you have practiced it. You might think you’re always present in the here and now. While this is technically true, if you’re anything like me, your brain is always moving…even in neutral! Reigning in your thoughts to focus solely the present moment actually takes a lot of work. Who knew!? But it is SO worth it. Of these three principles, this one is definitely where I struggle the most. Got any tips?

Are you spiritual? What does living in a spiritually aware manner mean to you?

The one small thing I do every day to put myself in a good mood…

April 10, 2018Personalfake it til you make it, find delight, how to get out of a rut, mood, positivity, thought exerciseBeth Berger

Years ago, I found myself in a bit of a rut. No matter how hard I tried life wasn’t turning out the way I had hoped and the pressure to turn things around started to feel like a black cloud rather than a rainbow of possibility.

Then one day, something changed.

I decided I would spend my drive to work (at a job I never expected to have) looking for things that would make me smile. A sweet old labrador lumbering down the sidewalk. A pair of siblings running to their bus stop. Weird license plates. Light hitting a puddle just so.

In the span of my 15 minute commute I went from grumpy to great! I continued to practice this exercise every day and was dumb-founded at the difference it made. Suddenly I was “finding delight” in the present moment instead of worrying about the future or what my life should look like.

Now, I still make time to seek out things I delight in every day. Whether this means looking out for things that make me smile when I’m stuck in Miami traffic (I clocked that burger graffiti pictured above while waiting at an intersection) or reading an article just for fun or asking myself “What will bring me joy today?” and then doing THAT. Just taking a few minutes to shift my perspective to the present moment works wonders. It’s the easiest, and simplest, way I know to turn my mood around!

So, I’d love to know — What made you smile today? If you’re still struggling for an answer, take a look around RIGHT NOW and look for something to delight in. What do you see? Thanks for sharing!

Do you use mantras?

October 13, 2017Brainpower#MantraMania, chant, emopowerment, find delight, meditation, mindfulness, seeking stillness, the thinking mind, thought experimentBeth Berger

Do you use mantras? I find them wildly helpful for setting intentions, practicing mindfulness, and chilling the eff out. Haha! In fact, I named this very blog to honor one of my favorite mantras of all time. FIND DELIGHT.

As you go about the tasks of your day, your mind is constantly popping in with new thoughts and ideas. And there are emotions that go along with these brain intruders. Sometimes a thought will bring up self-doubt, an idea will instill fear. A mantra has the power to drown out the excess noise, and to quell the accompanying emotions, by repeating something neutral or even empowering!

So why does it work?

“Put simply, it’s because it employs the thinking mind instead of trying to ignore it, silence it or subdue it. It uses thoughts to transcend thoughts, which is an extremely skillful method.”

As I mentioned before, FIND DELIGHT, is one of my faves but I’ve used many others to help me focus my thoughts in a direction of my choosing. If you’ve never given mantras a try, I encourage you to do so! Over the next few weeks I’ll be posting more about mantras so check back if this sorta thing tickles your fancy or you’d like to learn more. Until then choose a chant that suits ya…

I AM STRONG.
I AM ABUNDANT.
I AM CONFIDENT.
I AM HAPPY.
I AM ALL I NEED.

BE BRAVE.
FIND DELIGHT.

In this multi-week series, #MantraMania, I’m going to lay the ground work for you to make mantras a part of your life. Here’s what you can expect from the series: