Happiness

At LifeTrek Coaching International, our motto is "Celebrate the best for exceptional results." We work with you to "celebrate the best to bring out the best in individuals, schools, congregations, companies, and organizations." We also "enable people and organizations to move forward quickly and successfully in the directions of their dreams."

At the root of this work, is helping you to find and tap into your own happiness. We've talked about making well-made choices that "contribute to both (your) happiness and the happiness of the world," creating fan club moments by "help(ing) others to feel heard and (by) show(ing) true interest in their happiness and success," as well as balancing saying 'yes' and 'no' in order to "create an enduring Work/Life balance, greater performance, and happiness" amongst other aspects of happiness. As a whole, happiness plays a large role in the work we do.

Recently, NPR added a new essay to their This I Believe series that focused on the power of happiness. This I Believe is a "national media project engaging people in writing, sharing, and discussing the core values and beliefs that guide their daily lives." This new essay was written and read by Wayne Coyne, a singer in the band The Flaming Lips. In his essay, Coyne states "Happiness is not a situation to be longed for or a convergence of lucky happenstance. Through the power of our own minds, we can help ourselves. This I believe."

Listen to Coyne's essay and tell us what happiness means to you. Where do you find happiness? How do you share happiness with others? Can we create our own happiness? What role does happiness play in your life?

For more information on bringing happiness into your life, start with LifeTrek Provision #152: Am I Happy?

Heart Health

At LifeTrek Coaching International we talk a lot about our hearts. We talk about eating a "heart-healthy diet," "exercising leadership with backbone and heart," and "attending to what your own heart is saying." We've even talked about Bob's struggles with his own congenital heart valve defect. Being as our hearts are at the center of our lives, it's seemingly unavoidable to discuss them every now and then.

The feature story in National Geographic Magazing in February was an informative article on the topic of heart disease. The article looks at this epidemic and how science is looking for better ways to mend broken hearts across the globe:

"Cheeseburgers, smoking, stress, the rise of the couch potato: These are the usual suspects on the list of risk factors for heart disease, a malady reaching global epidemic proportions. Now discoveries about genetic triggers may help us spot trouble before it starts. "

As you read, however, don't forget that prevention is cheaper than rehabilitation. For more information on keeping your heart healthy, read the LifeTrek series on Optimal Wellness, starting with Provision #471: Nutrition 401.

Nutrition 401

A recent article in The New York Times Magazine by Michael Pollan (author of The Omnivore's Dilemma), titled Unhappy Meals touched base on many of the nutritional aspects found in the Optimal Wellness Prototype. Pollan stated:

"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. That, more or less, is the short answer to the supposedly incredibly complicated and confusing question of what we humans should eat in order to be maximally healthy. I hate to give away the game right here at the beginning of a long essay, and I confess that I'm tempted to complicate matters in the interest of keeping things going for a few thousand more words. I'll try to resist but will go ahead and add a couple more details to flesh out the advice. Like: A little meat won't kill you, though it's better approached as a side dish than as a main. And you're better off eating whole fresh foods than processed food products. That's what I mean by the recommendation to eat 'food.' Once, food was all you could eat, but today there are lots of other edible foodlike substances in the supermarket. These novel products of food science often come in packages festooned with health claims, which brings me to a related rule of thumb: if you're concerned about your health, you should probably avoid food products that make health claims. Why? Because a health claim on a food product is a good indication that it's not really food, and food is what you want to eat."

For more information on nutrition, read through the LifeTrek series "Optimal Wellness -- What Goes In," starting with Provision #471: Nutrition 401.

S.M.A.R.T. Goals

Unlike Dilbert's co-worker, are you remembering to make S.M.A.R.T. goals? Don't forget to create goals that are: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Timely.

For more information on S.M.A.R.T. goals, read through Provision # 496: S.M.A.R.T. Goals.