Pleasure
You likely want to maximize the pleasure you are getting. To do so, you can use your time and attention in different ways to get the pleasure you desire. For example, instead of buying a new car, maybe you can allow yourself to go on vacation multiple times during the next few years.
Maybe the pleasure of the vacations will be more than the pleasure of buying the car. After all, the pleasure of owning a new car will wear off fast, while the pleasure of the vacations and looking forward to the next might not wear off as quickly.
You need to consciously do this sort of prioritization yourself, because everyone else is constantly telling you how to prioritize. In fact, messages where others tell a person what to do take up a large part of most people’s lives. Since no one makes any money by telling you to go for a walk in the park, you’re likely not to hear that message too often. Yet you know that the best things in life are often free.
You want to put a lot of counterweight on the external and often commercial messages that are telling you what to do. Doing so requires you to be highly aware of who you are, what you want, what gives you pleasure, and how you can get it.
If you watch TV for any length of time, you are exposed to numerous messages telling you to seek pleasure in buying the advertiser’s products. But how much time do you spend daily to contemplate on your life about what is meaningful and important to you? How much pleasure do you use to counter the influences thrown at you on a daily basis?
In addition to advertisers, you also get pressure from other sources, including the government, your employer, your family, and your friends. All these sources combined create a lot of stress in your life.
To a large degree, stress happens when you’re out of focus with the pressures in your life or when you don’t see any way to get your life back in sync again. The stress people have today is mainly because there are so many people putting pressure on them. It is hard for individuals to put in the counter-pressure needed to live a balanced and comfortable life. The key to assembling the counter-pressure is to have balance in your life.
Free Workbook: “what do you want to do with your life?”
Allowing Ourselves to Ask the Question
Table of Contents
I. Chapter One: Introduction to Life Planning
- About Awareness
- Alternatives: “An Answer”
- An Alternative That We Choose as The Answer – Not an Epiphany
- Balance
- Dynamic Goals Versus Static Goals
- Happiness: When Are You Happy?
- Pain
- Pleasure
- Pleasure versus Pain
- Positive Mental Attitude
- Smart Goals
- The Method
- The Model
- Volition and Determinism
- What You Want are Feelings
- Who are You?
- You Life Goals
- Your sense of Life
- Parents
- Your Parents’ Wishes and Hopes for You
- How This Book Came into Being
- The Approach of This Workbook
- The Binder is the Key
- Why the Answer Matters
- Why This Workbook
- Keep Working On It – Refine and Mitigate
III. Chapter Three: The Influence Of Generations
- Action Items
- Exercise: Other Influential People
- Exercise: Defining Moments / Turning Points
- Exercise: Defining Moments / Turning Points
- Exercise: Things That Have Given You Pain
- Exercise:Things That Have Given You Pleasure
- Family Legacy
IV. Chapter Four: Your Present
- Exercise: Describe your sense of life
- Exercise: Happiness
- Exercise: Level of Awareness
- Exercise: Philosophy
- Exercise: Role Models and People You Admire
- Exercise: The Major Areas of Your Life
- Exercise: Values
- Exercise: What Are Your Current Goals?
- Exercise: What Do You Give?
- Exercise: You are what you constantly think
- Getting and Receiving
- Giving and Contribution
- Interests
- Moving Forward
- Self-Esteem
- Your Sense Of Life
- Belief
- Believing it is Possible
- Creating Your Alternatives
- Exercise: Create the ideal day in the ideal life
- Exercise: How can I give more?
- Exercise: If I could do anything…
- Exercise: Today my father would want me to…
- Exercise: Today my mother would want me to…
- Exercise: Today some significant others would want me to…
- Exercise: Write your own obituary/legacy
- How
- How as a Process, Not as a Recipe
- Persistence
- Personal roles
- Professional roles
- Trap #1: Do something now for just a bit and then tend to the dream
- Trap #2: Acquire money first and then tend to the dream
- Trap #3: Living glamorously; being cool and hip
- Trap #4: Only do what you are good at
- Trap #5: Belief that you can change people or culture
- Trap #6: Guilt
- Trap #7: Keeping your doors open
- Trap #8: Striving for the big goal
- Trap #9: Owning everything
- Trap #10: Stacking commitments
- Trap #11: Going after the sure thing
- Trap #12: Fear of success
- Trap #13: Staying on the wrong track
- Trap #14: Not being ready to make the decision
- Trap #15: Letting a major change paralyze you
- Trap #16: Falling in love with The Question
- What
- When
- Where
- Who
- Who, Where, Why, What, How and When
- Why
VI. Chapter Six: Your Alternatives
- Alternative 1
- Alternative 1:
- Alternative 2
- Alternative 2:
- Alternative 3
- Alternative 4
- Alternative 5
- Alternative Answers to The Question
- Certainty/ Risk/ Likelihood
- Checklist
- Example:
- Execution
- Experience
- Financial
- Fulfillment
- Giving, What
- Health, How
- How
- Interests, Why
- Keep Working On It – Refine and Mitigate
- Knowledge
- List the Alternatives
- No ONE Answer
- Pain, Why
- Pleasure Why?
- Skills
- Spirituality
- The Checklist
- The cons
- The Defaullt Alternative
- The Default Alternative – Path of Least Resistance:
- The pros
- What
- What Constitutes a Good Answer?
- When
- Where
- Who
- Why?
VII. Chapter Seven: Making The Decision
- How I Made My Decision
- About The Author
- Appendix: Authors
- Coin Tossing
- Decision-Making Techniques
- Drifting Into
- Elimination
- Getting Leverage
- Important Elements in Decision-Making
- Leave it Up to Others
- Major Pain
- Make a Contract with Yourself
- Make The Decision – The Commitment To Yourself
- Measured Criteria
- Referring to a Higher Order – Faith
- Self dicipline
- Setting TWo Alternatives Up Against Each Other
- Share It
- The Decision
- The One Question
- The T-chart
- Using a committee
- Which alternative did you decide on for your life plan?
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