I was recently invited to speak on a panel about mindfulness. Joining me was a Vedic practitioner, a well-established yoga teacher, and a shamanic meditation guide. Funny enough, I was the only person on the panel who actually practices mindfulness meditation daily.

What does mindfulness mean to you? was the first question. As the microphone went around, each individual very humbly explained their personal practice and how its not primarily mindfulness. Then they offered approximately the same traditional definition of that word. When it was my turn, I did feel compelled to point out that mindfulness and meditation, while intimately related, are not the same and both do, in fact, have proper definitions.

The great Tibetan Buddhist teacher Chgyam Trungpa Rinpoche had an amazing ability to work with the English language, and would often come up with new words to articulate the meaning of another, more established term. For example, he coined the word nownessas in the essence of being now in the present. That is one clear way to think of the term mindfulness. The ness aspect is the essence of, so we are saying that mindfulness is the essence of bringing your mind fully to one thing that is happening in the present moment.

The other day, someone on the social media team for MNDFL, the network of meditation studios that I co-founded, pinged me, asking if I could relate to a question posted on our Instagram feed. Apparently, she had posted a beautiful image of someone knitting and noted that while knitting is awesome, it is not meditation. A commenter had asked a good question: Whos to say knitting is not a form of mindful meditation just as walking can be a form of meditation? I really do love this question because it allowed me to geek out and clarify what mindful meditation is from a traditional point of view.

At the risk of being highly controversial amongst the mindful knitting community (which, Im guessing, does exist), one could mindfully knit or eat, but it is not a formal meditation technique, compared to those that have been transmitted over the centuries. Walking meditation is one of the four postures the Buddha discussed as a way to build mindfulness in his discourse on the four foundations of mindfulness some 2600 years ago. These postures fall under Mindfulness of the Body, which is under Right Mindfulness, which is part of the Eightfold Path. The other three, incidentally, are sitting, lying down and standing.

Now, heres the thing about mindfulness: The more you train in meditation, the more you are able to show up fully for the rest of your life, including things like knitting. But as mindfulness and meditation both become very popular, its important to distinguish what is and isnt meditation. So while you can mindfully knit (i.e., bring your mind fully to that one thing that is happening in the present moment), it is not a formal meditation practice. It is applying mindfulness, which can be cultivated in formal meditation practices to other aspects of your life, which is a lovely thing to do.

Meditation is a revolutionary practice for transforming your life by becoming familiar with, and ultimately, befriending all aspects of who you are. Running MNDFL, I encounter people every single day who have been led to believe that meditation is just one thing, and that one thing is whatever technique they were exposed to first. There are thousands of meditation techniques out there, but I will speak to some of those that are time-tested, having been around for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.

One form of meditation is bringing your mind fully to the breath, whether that is relaxing with your existent breath as is taught in Buddhist traditions, or more controlled breathing, like what is sometimes found in Kundalini lineages. In the Buddhist tradition, this is known as mindfulness meditation because we are relaxing with and tuning into what is currently going on: The body breathing. The more you train in mindfulness meditation, the more you are able to be present in the rest of your life.

This is different than, say, Vedic or Transcendental Meditation, where you work with a mantra. These mantras are personal to you, having been offered by a trained teacher. The transcending aspect is actually repeating the mantra until it falls awaymeaning you transcend it and relax into how things are. As a Buddhist, I admit I am not the best person to address this practice and highly encourage you to seek out certified Vedic or TM teachers who can do this profound practice justice, but as you can likely already tell this is different than mindfulness of the breath.

Related: What Is Transcendental Meditation?

There are also contemplative practices, where you bring to mind a phrase or a question and create some mental space for wisdom to arise around it. Some might say you are listening to your gut or intuition in these practices, but really its a sense of getting out of your own way so that you can realize an experiential understanding of whatever you are contemplating, whether its the truth of your mortality or setting an intention for your day.

The last overarching style Ill share is visualization. Coming from the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, there are all sorts of visualizations one might bring to mind and allow as the object of meditation. These images are often representing your innate wakefulness. In a more public practice, such as that of loving-kindness, you may even bring to mind the image of someone you admire, the image of someone you dont know very well, or the image of someone you have a hard time with in order to fully open your heart to them and wish them happiness and freedom from suffering.

The above list of types of meditation is by no means exhaustive, but provide some guidelines for two points Id like to offer:

1. If you are receiving a meditation technique that is not time-tested and from a long-standing tradition, you may find that it is very different than these, and I dont necessarily recommend doing it.2. Mindfulness meditationoften considered the practice of being mindful of the breathis but one of many, many forms of meditation that are out there. I recommend that you try a number of forms of meditation and see if mindfulness is for you.

Sitting on the panel the other week, I could embrace and appreciate that all of these individuals were meditation practitioners and lovers of meditation, but they were not primarily mindfulness practitioners. That said, all of us have the opportunity to train in mindfulness meditation, stemming from the Buddhist tradition, and bring mindfulness into our knitting, eating, listening, and more. Its a powerful tool for everyday life that we all have access to as we all have one of the very basic meditation tools needed for it: The breath.

By Lodro RinzlerPublished on July 19, 2017

Excerpt from:

Mindfulness vs. Meditation: What's the Difference? - Sonima

Good nutrition is essential for health. Insufficient nutrition can hinder growth and development. Excessive calorie consumption, however, can lead to overweight and obesity, especially when paired with too little physical activity. Inadequate physical activity itself also contributes to increased risk of a number of conditions including coronary heart disease, diabetes, and some cancers [1].

While healthy food and regular exercise are important to health, half of adults and nearly 72% of high school students in the US do not meet the CDCs recommended physical activity levels, and American adults walk less than adults in any other industrialized country. As of 2013, 29 million Americans lived in a food desert, without access to affordable, healthy food. Those with lower education levels, already at-risk for poor health outcomes, frequently live in food deserts [1].

More than two-thirds of all American adults and approximately 32% of children and adolescents are overweight or obese. Obesity is one of the biggest drivers of preventable chronic diseases in the US. Being overweight or obese increases the risk for many health conditions, including type 2 diabetes, heart disease, stroke, hypertension, cancer, Alzheimers disease, dementia, liver disease, kidney disease, osteoarthritis, and respiratory problems [1].

Unhealthy food intake and insufficient exercise have economic impacts for individuals and communities. Current estimates for obesity-related health care costs in the US range from $147 billion to nearly $210 billion annually, and productivity losses due to obesity-related job absenteeism cost an additional $4 billion each year [1].

Increasing opportunities for exercise and access to healthy foods in neighborhoods, schools, and workplaces can help children and adults eat healthy meals and reach recommended daily physical activity levels.

More:
Diet and Exercise | County Health Rankings & Roadmaps

See You at the Top byZig Ziglar, Al Mayton (Illustrator) 4.25 avg rating 9,428 ratings published 1974 29 editions

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Zig Ziglar (Author of See You at the Top)

Julie Ann Lucky is a leadership coach, network marketing executive, and lifelong student of personal growth. Her passion is in leadership with a specific emphasis on coaching entrepreneurs from all walks of life to reach their full potential in their personal life and in business. Julie is a founding partner with Monat Global, an anti-aging hair care company based in Miami. Her team sales now produces more than 1.5 million dollars in revenue in just 2.5 years in business with a network of 26,000 distributors and customers. Julie attributes the rapid growth of her team to the foundational principle of Zig Ziglar which states, You can get everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want.

Julie has served on the leadership council with Monat Global in both March and July of 2016. In 2016 and 2017 she was a speaker at the Monations United International Convention. She has facilitated mastermind groups on personal growth with entrepreneurs, as well as conducted Bible studies in the marketplace. From 2012-2014, she was a Director for a local tutoring service for homeschoolers called Classical Conversations. She is a certified coach with The John Maxwell Team and has studied sales coaching with the Direct Sales World Alliance. She holds a BS degree in elementary education in which she taught 6th grade in 1997-1999. Her mission in life is to inspire others to reach their full potential and live a life of significance.

Julie believes strongly in the mission of the ZZI team, and she is a student of their coaching and mentoring. She has attended ZZI workshops, public events and participated in a ZZI virtual course.

When she was asked to serve on the Board of Directors of the NSide Edge, Julie stepped forward without hesitation. Coaching others to live significantly is Julies guiding principle in her life, and she says the ZZI Team shares the foundational philosophy. Julie says she looks forward to helping spread the word to the masses that life is richer when you pay it forward with no strings attached and no expectations

More here:
Zig Ziglar International - The Brand That Delivers

Osho! (Photo from Wikimedia Commons, CC-By-SA http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%D8%A7%D9%88%D8%B4%D9%88.jpg)

Here are 250 Osho quotes on love, life, meditation, marriage and more. Osho, also known as Bhagwan Rajneesh was a spiritual master and enlightened being who created quite a wave in the twentieth century. You might also be interested in some of the Osho Books available as free downloads.

You may also be interested in the Spiritual Quote of the Day Android App, which includes quotes from Osho, Sadhguru, Gautama Buddha and many more great beings.

Be like an alone peak high in the sky. Why should you hanker to belong? You are not a thing! Things belong!

Relationship is the need of those who cannot be alone. Two alone persons relate, communicate, commune, and yet they remain alone.

It is a strange experience, that those who have left me have always left places for a better quality of people. I have never been a loser.

I love this world because it is imperfect. It is imperfect, and thats why it is growing; if it was perfect it would have been dead.

Wherever you are afraid, try to explore, and you will find death hiding somewhere behind. All fear is of death. Death is the only fear source.

Take life easily, lovingly, playfully, non-seriously. Seriousness is a disease, the greatest disease of the soul and playfulness the greatest health.

Never ask, Who is my real friend? Ask, Am I a real friend to somebody? That is the right question. Always be concerned with yourself.

It does not matter if you are a rose or a lotus or a marigold. What matters is that you are flowering.

Discover yourself, otherwise you have to depend on other peoples opinions who dont know themselves.

Just get out of your own way.

Only idiots are not controversial.

It is because nobody has been teaching you about hate; hence, hate has remained pure, unadulterated. When a man hatesyou, you can trust that he hates you.

Mind is the illusion that which is not but appears, and appears so much that you think that you are the mind.

Respect your uniqueness, and drop comparison. Relax into your being.

No, I dont want to give my people sticks. I want to give them eyes.

Love cannot be taught, it can only be caught.

Love is happy when it is able to give something. The ego is happy when it is able to take something.

The knowledgeable person lives with a question mark ? and the man of awe and wonder lives with an exclamation mark.

A serious person can never be innocent, and one who is innocent can never be serious.

Man is born only as a potential. He can become a thorn for himself and for others, he can also become a flower for himself and for others.

Desire disappears as you become more and more aware. When awareness is one hundred percent, there is no desire at all.

Hell is our creation, and we create hell by trying to do the impossible. Heaven is our nature, it is our spontaneity. It is where we always are.

Real love is not an escape from loneliness, real love is an overflowing aloneness. One is so happy in being alone that one would like to share.

When you are different the whole world is different. It is not a question of creating a different world. It is only a ques of creating a different you.

That which makes you miserable is the only sin. That which takes you away from yourself is the only thing to be avoided.

Dont be unnecessarily burdened by the past. Go on closing the chapters that you have read; there is no need to go back again and again.

Accept yourself as you are. And that is the most difficult thing in the world, because it goes against your training, education, your culture.

Sharing is the most precious religious experience. Sharing is good.

You can go on changing the outer for lives and you will never be satisfied. Unless the inner changes, the outer can never be perfect.

It is imperfect, and thats why it is growing; if it was perfect it would have been dead. Growth is possible only if there is imperfection.

Accept yourself as you are. And that is the most difficult thing in the world, because it goes against your training, education, your culture.

Life exists without rules; games cannot exist without rules. Only false religion has rules, because false religion is a game.

If you work without love, you are working like a slave. When you work with love, you work like an emperor. Your work is your joy, your work is your dance.

The only authentic responsibility is towards your own potential. Values have not to be imposed on you. They should grow with your awareness, in you.

Truth is not something outside to be discovered, it is something inside to be realized.

A comfortable, convenient life is not a real life the more comfortable, the less alive. The most comfortable life is in the grave.

Love is authentic only when it gives freedom. Love is true only when it respects the other persons individuality, his privacy.

Man is always exploited through fear.

If whatsoever you have been living can be conveyed by words, that means you have not lived at all.

Its not a question of learning much. On the contrary. Its a question of unlearning much.

If you love yourself, you love others. If you hate yourself, you hate others. In relationship with others, it is only you mirrored.

If you love a flower, dont pick it up. Because if you pick it up it dies and it ceases to be what you love. So if you love a flower, let it be. Love is not about possession. Love is about appreciation.

Bravery does not mean being fearless. It means to be full of fear but still not being dominated by it.

God is a person; godliness is a quality. You cannot become God, but you can be godly.

When your ego is no more, only then will you know who you are.

To avoid pain, they avoid pleasure. To avoid death, they avoid life.

Anywhere everywhere! Anything anyhow! just dance!

The word devil is very beautiful, if you read it backwards it becomes lived. That which is lived becomes divine and that which is not lived becomes the devil.

In relationship, be blissful, in aloneness be aware and they will help each other, like two wings of a bird.

Nobody else can destroy you except you; nobody else can save you except you. You are the Judas and you are the Jesus.

The less the head, the more the wound will heal. No head there is no wound. Live a headless life. Move as a total being, and accept things.

When you really laugh for those few moments you are in a deep meditative state. Thinking stops. It is impossible to laugh and think together.

Your real being only flowers with unconditional love. Ambition is against love. Anything that is against love is against you and your real life.

Dont be bothered by perfection. Replace the word Perfection by Totality. Totality will give you a different dimension.

NOW is the only reality. All else is either memory or imagination.

Get out of your head and get into your heart. Think less, feel more.

The only thing that matters in life, is your own opinion about yourself.

All your knowledge is dust. Knowing is your purity, knowledge is dust.

Dont be angry at life. It is not life that is frustrating you, it is you who are not listening to life.

Life is not logic, life is not philosophy. Life is a dance, a song, a celebration! It is more like love and less like logic.

Celebration is my attitude, unconditional to what life brings.

Life in itself is so beautiful that to ask the question of the meaning of life is simply nonsense.

Life is a mirror, it reflects your face. Be friendly, and all of life will reflect friendliness.

Whatever you are doing, dont let past move your mind;dont let future disturb you. Because the past is no more, and the future is not yet.

Fools are more healthy then the so-called wise. Thy live in the moment and they know that thy are fools, so thy are not worried about what others think about them.

Dont be serious about seriousness. Laugh about it, be a little foolish. Dont condemn foolishness; it has its own beauties.

It cannot be called freedom, a freedom which can choose only the right and not the wrong; then that is not freedom.

Only silence communicates the truth as it is.

Be. Dont try to become. Within these two words, be and becoming, your whole life is contained. Being is enlightenment, becoming is ignorance.

If you love yourself, you will be surprised: others will love you. Nobody loves a person who does not love himself.

Lovers have known sometimes what saints have not known.

Love is not manageable, it is simply something that happens, and the moment you try to manage it everything misfire.

Your honesty, Your love, Your compassion should come from your inner being, not from teachings and scriptures.

If you clean the floor with love, you have done an invisible painting. Live each moment in such delight that it gives you something inner.

Never obey anyones command unless it is coming from within you also.

Thats why children look so beautiful because they are yet full of hope, full of dreams, and they have not yet known frustration.

You will come closer and closer to perfection, but you will never be perfect. Perfection is not the way of existence. Growth is the way.

Dont analyze, celebrate it.

NOW is the only reality all else is either memory or imagination.

The Mind: a beautiful servant, a dangerous master.

Whatsoever you hide goes on growing, and whatsoever you expose, if it is wrong it disappears, evaporates in the sun, and if it is right it is nourished.

Love brings freedom. Loyalty brings slavery.

Misery comes the moment you become clinging, attached. The moment you put conditions on life.

Die each moment so that you are renewed each moment.

Instead of pleasing, learn the art of happiness.

Happiness is an art that one has to learn. It has nothing to do with your doing or not doing.

Friendship is a relationship, friendliness is a state of your being. You are simply friendly; to whom, that is not the point. . .

Anger transformed becomes compassion. Sex transformed becomes prayer. Greed transformed becomes sharing.

Life is a mystery, and there is nothing to explain everything is just open, it is in front of you. Encounter it! Meet it! Be courageous!

Sadness comes, joy comes, and everything passes by. What remains always is the witness. The witness is beyond all polarities.

Freedom is our most precious treasure. Dont lose it for anything. . . .

Forget about getting, simply give; and I guarantee you, you will get much.

If you cannot love yourself, you dont know even the taste of love or what love means.

Freedom is a ladder: one side of the ladder reaches hell, the other side touches heaven. It is the same ladder; the choice is yours.

Drop the idea that attachment and love are one thing. They are enemies. It is attachment that destroys all love.

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250 Osho Quotes on Love, Life and Meditation - Patheos

This is the Place where Your Everyday Life becomes a Sacred CeremonyMargot Anand, International Bestselling author / Spiritual Master

WOW!!! We are so impressed by the ashram! Its very inspiring. So wonderful to see local kids partake the beauty that has unfolded as a result of your hard work.Sufi Saddiq and Surapsari

Infinite Gratitude for the pleasure, the honor to experience the Grace and Love of this ashram.Lila, Costa Rica

It is my honor to be one of the first people to use this ashram. At this time in my life i am moving into my power as a spreader of joy and understanding. I can clearly see that all is one Without this beautiful space, this beauty we are creating would not be possible. It feels like home here, teaching and learning with these brothers and sisters. Thank you.Leif Gaston, Hawaii (USA)

My dreams danced awake into Anand Krishnas ashram. Pure Bliss. An incredible space filled with love. Thanking my angels for guiding me here. Clearly seeing the magic in every moment. What a gift to be welcomed here! I am filled with gratitude, gushing with joy, and breathing pure Love.Aya Love, Canada

Thank you for sharing this beautiful space easeless, peaceful, soul gazing connections created through joyous play and pray. Colorful and nourishing meals, blessed and blissed, were shared in abundance. Dance and song sessions magically filled my heart. Thank you for offering this container for us to co-create in the Divine Playground. With Love and Gratitude.Tracy Santa, Oakland (USA)

Eternal gratitude for sharing this home in ubud. May many travelers feel welcome and rested, bringing their stories from around the world here, as we have been able to. I will share the beauty of this place as i continue on my adventure.Stirling Freeman, http://www.circuscentric.org

I felt right at home here, grounded, nourished, and welcomed. A true family without judgement. Accepted and honored. I will keep very fond memories of the place and especially the people warm, caring, loving and kind. They will be greatly missed. I am ever grateful for the time we shared. Love, light, and blessings to all.Emily Baxter, Ottawa, Ontario (Canada)

We have the conviction that Global Harmony Monument is sharing this goal to promote and support Diversity and Inclusion that is why invite you to be associated to the Do One Thing campaign. Marta Lopez, United Nations Alliance of Civilizations

I have found paradise at Anand Ashram. Very affordable, brand new clean rooms with pool amongst a delightful garden. A place to re-connect spiritually - free from distractions of tv. It's a byo vegetarian food only ! which you can purchase from ubud village and no alcohol or drugs allowed !!!! a great place to meet like-minded travellers. during your stay in this community you are expected to help in the up-keep of the ashram. love it - came for two days, ended up staying six weeks, on and off.Cindy Parisienne, Australia

Our staying in the Ashram was lovely, we met very nice people. Thanks for your hospitality and warmth. We are leaving this place full of serenity. we hope to come back and spend more time here.Julie & Alexis, French

Beautiful Ashram in the middle of a rice paddies. I enjoyed the serenity of this place, lovely people and ambiance. I enjoyed the daily meditations and nightly group programs were interactive and enlightening. Thanks for making Ubud more magical for me.Tania, Canada

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Anand Ashram - Bali Meditation Centre, Ubud Inn, Ubud ...

Many people feel as if they're adrift in the world. They work hard, but they don't seem to get anywhere worthwhile.

A key reason that they feel this way is that they haven't spent enough time thinking about what they want from life, and haven't set themselves formal goals. After all, would you set out on a major journey with no real idea of your destination? Probably not!

Learn how to set SMART goals.

First consider what you want to achieve, and then commit to it. Set SMART (specific, measureable, attainable, relevant and time-bound) goals that motivate you and write them down to make them feel tangible. Then plan the steps you must take to realize your goal, and cross off each one as you work through them.

Goal setting is a powerful process for thinking about your ideal future, and for motivating yourself to turn your vision of this future into reality.

The process of setting goals helps you choose where you want to go in life. By knowing precisely what you want to achieve, you know where you have to concentrate your efforts. You'll also quickly spot the distractions that can, so easily, lead you astray.

Top-level athletes, successful business-people and achievers in all fields all set goals. Setting goals gives you long-term vision and short-term motivation . It focuses your acquisition of knowledge, and helps you to organize your time and your resources so that you can make the very most of your life.

By setting sharp, clearly defined goals, you can measure and take pride in the achievement of those goals, and you'll see forward progress in what might previously have seemed a long pointless grind. You will also raise your self-confidence , as you recognize your own ability and competence in achieving the goals that you've set.

You set your goals on a number of levels:

This is why we start the process of setting goals by looking at your lifetime goals. Then, we work down to the things that you can do in, say, the next five years, then next year, next month, next week, and today, to start moving towards them.

The first step in setting personal goals is to consider what you want to achieve in your lifetime (or at least, by a significant and distant age in the future). Setting lifetime goals gives you the overall perspective that shapes all other aspects of your decision making.

Learn new career skills every week, and get our Personal Development Plan Workbook FREE when you subscribe.

To give a broad, balanced coverage of all important areas in your life, try to set goals in some of the following categories (or in other categories of your own, where these are important to you):

Spend some time brainstorming these things, and then select one or more goals in each category that best reflect what you want to do. Then consider trimming again so that you have a small number of really significant goals that you can focus on.

As you do this, make sure that the goals that you have set are ones that you genuinely want to achieve, not ones that your parents, family, or employers might want. (If you have a partner, you probably want to consider what he or she wants however, make sure that you also remain true to yourself!)

You may also want to read our article on Personal Mission Statements . Crafting a personal mission statement can help bring your most important goals into sharp focus.

Once you have set your lifetime goals, set a five-year plan of smaller goals that you need to complete if you are to reach your lifetime plan.

Then create a one-year plan, six-month plan, and a one-month plan of progressively smaller goals that you should reach to achieve your lifetime goals. Each of these should be based on the previous plan.

Then create a daily To-Do List of things that you should do today to work towards your lifetime goals.

At an early stage, your smaller goals might be to read books and gather information on the achievement of your higher level goals. This will help you to improve the quality and realism of your goal setting.

Finally review your plans, and make sure that they fit the way in which you want to live your life.

Once you've decided on your first set of goals, keep the process going by reviewing and updating your To-Do List on a daily basis.

Periodically review the longer term plans, and modify them to reflect your changing priorities and experience. (A good way of doing this is to schedule regular, repeating reviews using a computer-based diary.)

A useful way of making goals more powerful is to use the SMART mnemonic. While there are plenty of variants (some of which we've included in parenthesis), SMART usually stands for:

For example, instead of having "to sail around the world" as a goal, it's more powerful to use the SMART goal"To have completed my trip around the world by December 31, 2015." Obviously, this will only be attainable if a lot of preparation has been completed beforehand!

The following broad guidelines will help you to set effective, achievable goals:

Set performance goals, not outcome goals You should take care to set goals over which you have as much control as possible. It can be quite dispiriting to fail to achieve a personal goal for reasons beyond your control!

In business, these reasons could be bad business environments or unexpected effects of government policy. In sport, they could include poor judging, bad weather, injury, or just plain bad luck.

If you base your goals on personal performance, then you can keep control over the achievement of your goals, and draw satisfaction from them.

Set realistic goals It's important to set goals that you can achieve. All sorts of people (for example, employers, parents, media, or society) can set unrealistic goals for you. They will often do this in ignorance of your own desires and ambitions.

It's also possible to set goals that are too difficult because you might not appreciate either the obstacles in the way, or understand quite how much skill you need to develop to achieve a particular level of performance.

When you've achieved a goal, take the time to enjoy the satisfaction of having done so. Absorb the implications of the goal achievement, and observe the progress that you've made towards other goals.

If the goal was a significant one, reward yourself appropriately. All of this helps you build the self-confidence you deserve.

With the experience of having achieved this goal, review the rest of your goal plans:

Our article, Golden Rules of Goal Setting , will show you how to set yourself up for success when it comes to your goals. If you're still having trouble, you might also want to try Backward Goal Setting .

It's important to remember that failing to meet goals does not matter much, just as long as you learn from the experience.

Feed lessons you have learned back into the process of setting your next goals. Remember too that your goals will change as time goes on. Adjust them regularly to reflect growth in your knowledge and experience, and if goals do not hold any attraction any longer, consider letting them go.

For her New Year's Resolution, Susan has decided to think about what she really wants to do with her life.

Her lifetime goals are as follows:

Now that Susan has listed her lifetime goals, she then breaks down each one into smaller, more manageable goals.

Let's take a closer look at how she might break down her lifetime career goal becoming managing editor of her magazine:

As you can see from this example, breaking big goals down into smaller, more manageable goals makes it far easier to see how the goal will get accomplished.

A good way of getting going with this is to use the Mind Tools Life Plan Workbook. Supported by worksheets and advice, this guides you through a simple 5-step process for setting SMART goals, and for organizing yourself for success.

Goal setting is an important method of:

Set your lifetime goals first. Then, set a five-year plan of smaller goals that you need to complete if you are to reach your lifetime plan. Keep the process going by regularly reviewing and updating your goals. And remember to take time to enjoy the satisfaction of achieving your goals when you do so.

If you don't already set goals, do so, starting now. As you make this technique part of your life, you'll find your career accelerating, and you'll wonder how you did without it!

The rest is here:
Personal Goal Setting - How to Set SMART Goals - from ...

The Enlightenment developed those features of the modern world that most libertarians prizeliberal politics and free markets, scientific progress, and technological innovation.

The Enlightenment took the intellectual revolutions of the early modern 17th century and transformed European and American society in the 18th century. At the beginning of the 17th century, Europe was largely feudal and prescientific. By the end of the 18th century, however, liberal democratic revolutions had swept away feudalism; the foundations of physics, chemistry, and biology had been laid; and the Industrial Revolution was at full steam.

The Enlightenment was the product of thousands of brilliant and hardworking individuals, yet two Englishmen are most often identified as inaugurating it: John Locke (16321704), for his work on reason, empiricism, and liberal politics; and Isaac Newton (16431727), for his work on physics and mathematics. The transition to the post-Enlightenment era is often dated from the successful resolution of the American Revolution in the 1780sor, alternatively, from the collapse of the French Revolution and the rise to power of Napoleon Bonaparte in the 1790s. Between Locke and Newton at the end of the 17th century and the American and French Revolutions at the end of the 18th century, there occurred 100 years of unprecedented intellectual activity, social ferment, and political and economic transformation.

Fundamental to the achievements of Locke and Newton was confident application of reason to the physical world, religion, human nature, and society. By the 1600s, modern thinkers began to insist that perception and reason are the sole means by which men could know the worldin contrast to the premodern, medieval reliance on tradition, faith, and revelation. These thinkers started their investigations systematically from an analysis of nature, rather than the supernatural, the characteristic starting point of premodern thought. Enlightenment intellectuals stressed mans autonomy and his capacity for forming his own characterin contrast to the premodern emphasis on dependence and original sin. Most important, modern thinkers began to emphasize the individual, arguing that the individuals mind is sovereign and that the individual is an end in himselfin contrast to the premodernist, feudal subordination of the individual to higher political, social, or religious authorities. The achievements of Locke and Newton represent the maturation of this new intellectual world.

Political and economic liberalism depend on confidence that individuals can run their own lives. Political power and economic freedom are thought to reside in individuals only to the extent that they are thought to be capable of using them wisely. This confidence in individuals rests on a confidence in human reasonthe means by which individuals can come to know their world, plan their lives, and socially interact.

If reason is a faculty of the individual, then individualism becomes crucial to our understanding of ethics. Lockes A Letter Concerning Toleration (1689) and Two Treatises of Government (1690) are landmark texts in the modern history of individualism. Both link the human capacity for reason to ethical individualism and its social consequences: the prohibition of force against anothers independent judgment or action, individual rights, political equality, limiting the power of government, and religious toleration.

Science and technology more obviously depend on confidence in the power of reason. The scientific method is a refined application of reason to understanding nature. Trusting science cognitively is an act of confidence in reason, as is trusting ones life to its technological products. If one emphasizes that reason is the faculty of understanding nature, then the epistemology that emerges from it, when systematically applied, yields science. Enlightenment thinkers laid the foundations of all the major branches of science. In mathematics, Newton and Gottfried Leibniz independently developed the calculus, Newton developing his version in 1666 and Leibniz publishing his in 1675.The monumental publication of modern physics, Newtons Principia Mathematica, appeared in 1687. A century of investigation led to the production of Carolus Linnaeuss Systema Naturae in 1735 and Species Plantarium in 1753, jointly presenting a comprehensive biological taxonomy. The publication of Antoine Lavoisiers Trait lmentaire de Chimie (Treatise on Chemical Elements) in 1789, proved to be the foundational text in the science of chemistry. The rise of rational science also brought broader social improvements, such as the lessening of superstition and, by the 1780s, the end of persecutions of witchcraft.

Individualism and science are consequences of an epistemology predicated on reason. Both applied systematically have enormous consequences. Individualism when applied to politics yielded a species of liberal democracy, whereby the principle of individual freedom was wedded to the principle of decentralizing political power. As the importance of individualism rose in the modern world, feudalism declined. Revolutions in England in the 1640s and in 1688 began this trend, and the modern political principles there enunciated spread to America and France in the 18th century, leading to liberal revolutions in 1776 and 1789. Political reformers instituted bills of rights, constitutional checks on abuses of government power, and the elimination of torture in judicial proceedings.

As the feudal regimes weakened and were overthrown, liberal individualist ideas were extended to all human beings. Racism and sexism are obvious affronts to individualism and went on the defensive as the 18th century progressed. During the Enlightenment, antislavery societies were formed in America in 1784, in England in 1787, and a year later in France; in 1791 and 1792, Olympe de Gougess Declaration of the Rights of Women and Mary Wollstonecrafts A Vindication of the Rights of Women, landmarks in the movement for womens liberty and equality, were published.

Free markets and capitalism are a reflection of individualism in the marketplace. Capitalist economics is based on the principle that individuals should be left free to make their own decisions about production, consumption, and trade. As individualism rose in the 18th century, feudal and mercantilist institutions declined. With freer markets came a theoretical grasp of the productive impact of the division of labor and specialization and of the retarding impact of protectionism and other restrictive regulations. Capturing and extending those insights, Adam Smiths Wealth of Nations, published in 1776, is the landmark text in modern economics. With the establishment of freer markets came the elimination of guilds and many governmental monopolies, and the development of modern corporations, banking, and financial markets.

Science, when applied systematically to material production, yields engineering and technology. By the mid-18th century, the free exchange of ideas and wealth resulted in scientists and engineers uncovering knowledge and creating technologies on an unprecedented scale. The Industrial Revolution, underway for some decades, was substantially advanced by James Watts steam engine after 1769. Items that were once luxuriessuch as pottery, cotton fabric, paper for books and newspapers, and glass for windows in housessoon became mass-produced.

When science is applied to the human body, the result is advances in medicine. New studies of human anatomy and physiology swept away supernaturalistic and other premodern accounts of human disease. By the second half of the 18th century, medicine was placed on a scientific footing. Edward Jenners discovery of a smallpox vaccine in 1796, for example, provided protection against a major killer and established the science of immunization. Over the course of the century, physicians made advances in their understanding of nutrition, hygiene, and diagnostic techniques. These discoveries, combined with newly developed medical technologies, contributed to modern medicine. At the same time, advances in public hygiene led to a substantial decline in mortality rates, and average longevity increased.

The Enlightenment also was responsible for the establishment of the idea of progress. Ignorance, poverty, war, and slavery, it was discovered, were not inevitable. Indeed, Enlightenment thinkers came to be profoundly convinced that every human problem could be solved and that the human condition could be raised to new and as-yet unimagined heights. The time will come, wrote the Marquis de Condorcet, a mathematician and social reformer who also translated Smiths Wealth of Nations into French, when the sun will shine only on free men who have no master but their own reasons. Through science the world was open to being understood, to disease being eliminated, and to the unlimited improvement of agriculture and technologies. Every individual possessed the power of reason, and, hence, education could become universal and illiteracy and superstition eliminated. Because men possess reason, we are able to structure our social arrangements and design political and economic institutions that will protect our rights, settle our disputes peaceably, and enable us to form fruitful trading partnership with others. We can, they thought, become knowledgeable, free, healthy, peaceful, and wealthy without limit. In other words, the Enlightenment bequeathed to us the optimistic belief that progress and the pursuit of happiness are the natural birthrights of humankind.

Yet not all commentators regarded the Enlightenment as unrelievably progressive. Conservatives leveled three broad criticismsthat the Enlightenments rationalism undermined religious faith, that the Enlightenments individualism undermined communal ties, and that by overemphasizing the powers of reason and individual freedom the Enlightenment led to revolutions that instituted changes of such rapidity that they undermined social stability. Socialists also offered three criticismsthat the Enlightenments idolatry of science and technology led to an artificial world of dehumanizing machines and gadgets; that the Enlightenments competitive individualism and capitalism destroyed community and led to severe inequalities; and that the combination of science, technology, and capitalism inevitably led to technocratic oppression by the haves against the have-nots.

Contemporary debates over the significance of the Enlightenment thus have a threefold characterbetween those who see it as a threat to an essentially religious-traditionalist vision, those who see it as a threat to an essentially Left-egalitarian vision, and those who see it as the foundation of the magnificent achievements of the modern scientific and liberal-democratic world.

Further Readings

Cassirer, Ernst. The Philosophy of the Enlightenment. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1968.

Gay, Peter. The Enlightenment. New York: Knopf, 1966. Horkheimer, Max, and Theodor W. Adorno. Dialectic of Enlightenment. New York: Continuum, 1994 [1944].

Kramnick, Isaac, ed. The Portable Enlightenment Reader. New York: Penguin, 1995.

Kurtz, Paul, and Timothy J. Madigan, eds. Challenges to the Enlightenment. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1994.

Rusher, William A., ed. The Ambiguous Legacy of the Enlightenment. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1995.

William, David, ed. The Enlightenment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Originally published August 15, 2008.

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