The Art of Listening

Having goals for the things we want to do and working to achieve them is an integral part of being human. The path to our goals may not always be smooth or easy, but having goals, big or small, is part of what makes life suitable. It gives us a sense of meaning and purpose, it points us in the direction we want to go and its interests and involves us, all of which is good for our overall happiness. What is Goal Setting? Experts define goal setting as the act of selecting a goal or target that you want to achieve. This isn't always true now, with the relatively new phenomena of cyberbulling. And smartphones distort our work/life balance. I worked hard starting out, but most of my early jobs were the traditional hours of nine o'clock to five. Now it's almost expected that employees will be online to take care of business at a moment's notice. Even a vacation is not what it used to be. When I was your age, if you went to the beach or mountains to get away, you really were away. Now, vacations are all about posting on Snapchat, Instagram, and Facearticle. The rush to let others know our every move means we lose out on much-needed personal downtime. Check in less and break the unproductive cycle of social media addiction. Disconnect from your phone and reconnect with family and friends. If you've followed everything in this article so far, that's how you should feel now about stopping drinking. You're about to experience an exhilarating sense of freedom. That's what you were hoping for when you boarded the plane and that's what I've prepared you for. You should feel confident about your every move. But it's completely understandable that, as you stand by the door of the plane, looking out at this wonderful new experience that awaits you, you feel the butterflies in your stomach and a little knot of apprehension.

For the parachutist, these fears are irrational. Millions of people have done it before, the whole process has been tested, you've been given all the instruction you need, and you know it works. All you have to do is jump. Yet the butterflies are completely natural. The same is true of any lingering concerns you might have about becoming a nondrinker. It is challenging to satisfy this need because the planet and therefore the lives of the people around us are constantly changing. This causes us to put controls around our lives or remain within the temperature and resist change because it comes even when it's a healthy change. Meeting the human need for certainty involves finding or forming a way of centeredness and stability within ourselves. There is a requirement for everybody to experience things that are far away from the norm, move from the unknown, defined and predictable in order that they will become who they need to be. The necessity to experience uncertainty, diversity, and movement tampers with the patterns of predictability and stagnation. They permit us to maneuver forward and to expand from who we are. As humans, we discover it risky to go away the world of certainty because it comes along side some comfort, but once we let it go, we enter into another level of possibility that's not governed by our past experiences. It is difficult to satisfy the necessity for variety as long as its primary drivers are constantly changing; Looking at it from a positive perspective, variety involves us during a balanced approach that allows us to maneuver dynamically within our outer and inner landscape and allows change when it's needed beginning with ourselves. Once we plan to create a real shift within that which must change on the surface will do so naturally without necessarily having to maneuver to a special location, a new job, or a relationship for us to experience a difference. If you are the victim of a false positive, insist on being given a backup test of a different type. Document your request in writing. PUTTING YOURSELF ACROSS . TO SUPERVISORS Self-Test Your Savvy in Communicating with Your Boss

The following is a simple diagnostic test. A smaller and more selective version of the self-test in article 1, its purpose is not to test your knowledge of communication theory or techniques, but to help you gauge how effectively you communicate with supervisors in a day-to-day business context. For the most part, you will find it easy to guess the right answer. But getting the right answer is not the point of the test. Respond honestly, even if you feel that your response is not the best one possible. How else can you optimize sleep? Go to bed at the same time every night and wake up at the same time every day (yes, weekends too). This allows your body's internal biological clock or circadian rhythm to stabilize and allows you to feel more wakeful during the day and more sleepy at night. Sleeping in on the weekends may feel nice, but it can actually make you more tired and lethargic when you have to wake up earlier during the week. When shutting it down for the day, having a regular routine is always best. Begin by shutting off all technology. In fact, I charge my cell phone in the kitchen to ensure I am not tempted to stare at the screen while trying to get a good night's rest. My friends and patients always ask how I can do that? What if there is an emergency? I have been doing it for almost 5 years and have never had any issues, although I keep my ringtone set on loud, just in case. They are basically electronic scrubbers and can be harsh and abrasive, so please use with caution. Look for something with minerals to calm any inflammation. If you've done a lot of extractions, a clay mask is a great choice because it will pull any remaining infection out of the pores and close them down. Here are a few other at-home versions: Honey also has antimicrobial properties, so it's great for all skin types, especially the acne prone or dry.

Take a teaspoon of honey and massage it onto your clean skin. Leave the honey mask on for about ten minutes and then rinse with warm water. Your skin will feel so soft and smooth. If you have combination skin, however, avoid the dry areas of your face. Warm two teaspoons of water in the microwave in a small bowl. It stuck with me as a way to tackle the hardest thing first. Because a frog would be disgusting to actually swallow. But it would feel so good to get it over with if you knew it was what you had to do, if you knew when you did it you would feel free and exuberant on the other side. When you wake up, you pick the hardest thing. The thing you have been avoiding the longest. This is your frog. You swallow it whole. You do the task. And because your first action was the hardest one to swallow, every single thing you do following that in the day will feel softer, easier, and less stressful. I lean into that. Remember the contrasting mind-sets of victim and accountability from article 11? If I view life as something that happens to me by always seeking out external structure and doing what is expected of me, I'm being a victim, which greatly limits my power to have a great life. If I choose accountability, I realize that I make the choices in my life, and from those choices come my results. One of the most important choices in your life-- a choice that has tremendous impact on your results--is that of which structures, externally or personally created, you are going to honor. How do you choose, let alone create, suitable structures to live your life by?

I would suggest that, at a minimum, you get very clear about your answer to the Key Question hinted at by this article's title. That question is: What do you want? Often, people confuse the answer to this question with a shopping trip through the structure supermarket. They think maybe they would be happy if only they could find the right job, the right car, the right mate, the right place to live, the right political system, the right dog, the right brand of laundry detergent, and so on. I called this final Part The Pursuit of Happiness, but when I talk about happiness, I mean more than just having fun--I mean the complete, rich sense of fulfilling everything that is meaningful to you, that you crave, that you delight in. All I could do was listen and record their concerns, encourage them to keep going and tell them how much I respected their passion and courage--because I did. I want to go back to Sierra Leone one day to see what it's like now, more than ten years later. How it's changed or not changed. I can tell you this: going there changed me. Hearing those young reporters tell their stories, wanting to do their job well, to dig, to uncover the truth even though they could face repercussions, and seeing those children smile, in circumstances that you'd think would make most people cry, taught me something. Hope is bigger than fear. It snuffs it out. Hope is also contagious, and when it spreads, it can bring lasting change. Two is Better Than One Blaize was seven, and she was clear about what she wanted. By building my morning routine on this practice of remembering what matters, both on my task list and in my soul, I'm better equipped to meet the day, no matter the shape it takes. Over time, I've added other elements--reading, stretching, drinking hot coffee in silence--but by starting with my one thing, I'm prepared for what's coming, even if an early riser cuts my routine short. A ROUTINE TO START WORK You and I likely have different types of work, but we both need a path to prepare for it. How you prepare for it is up to you, but if you create a routine not around what you do but what you ask, you'll find an easier path into your work.