David B. Bohl

This article was written by David B. Bohl – Husband, Father, Friend, Lifestyle Coach, Author, Entrepreneur, and creator of Slow Down FAST.

Whose Story Are You Living?

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whose story are you living

Do you ever find yourself telling someone you’ve recently met the story of your life? You probably don’t think of it as a story, because to you it’s all factual. Truth is, we place a lot of interpretation on our life story. And when you remember how it was from the present day perspective, you often distort fact from interpretation. When you do tell your story, do you look at it and wonder if it’s the story you would have written for yourself? Do you ever wonder whose story you are living?

Ask yourself this question: “Am I living a life of my own design, following my passions and interests, or am I following my family, friends, or society, living someone else’s dreams?” If you now realize that you are not living your chosen life story, it is time to take a look at what you’d like to change. If you’ve been doing the same career or business, living the same lifestyle, keeping too busy to take time to observe your life and your feelings, it may be time to take a time out and see what’s really important to you.

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The Greatest Gift You Can Give Your Kids

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Obama’s kids aren’t impressed by his work.

Back in April, Obama candidly admitted on the Rachel Ray Show that his job doesn’t exactly fill his kids with excitement. “When I call them and they say, ‘Daddy, what did you do today?’ I said, ‘Well, I spoke to 35,000 people.’ It’s like ‘Boring.’ It’s not interesting,” The focus of Obama’s interview was the importance of finding time to spend time with your family, even if you happen to be running for President of the United States of America.

In the past it was thought that being a “good parent” meant spending more time away from your kids – coming to work early and leaving late, schmoozing your way up the corporate ladder after hours, volunteering for extra projects and business trips, etc. But over time, parents and parenting experts have come to realize that it’s not how much you give your kid that’s important – it’s how much time you give them.

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5 Daily Practices to Help You Keep Your Edge

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You may or may not think you live in a competitive world. But if you look around you in your personal and professional lives, you will see there is competition on many levels. Personally, you compete for resources, material goods, time, attention, and energy. Professionally, you compete for jobs, promotions, clients, customers, recognition, and dollars.

Where do you find yourself in competition on a daily basis? Is it in finding a good parking space at the post office? Or getting a good starting time on the golf course? In business do you find your competitors cutting prices to compete for your customers? Do you see new businesses opening that compete with you by having more current technology and products?

In our personal lives, merchants compete in a cutthroat race for our business. Ads on television and in magazines and newspapers tell us what we should buy. In two hours of prime time TV you might see ads for two to three different brands of cars. In grocery stores, there are no less than 50 different breakfast cereals competing for space in your shopping cart. And when you go into a bookstore, don’t you feel like every book is competing against the others for your attention?

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How to Design Your Own Life

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design your life

There are no guarantees that life will turn out the way you want… but you have a better chance of it turning out how you want if you know how to design your own life.

I like the image of an architect designing a building by first laying out the blueprints. Or a writer outlining a book starting with the table of contents. The ability to create from scratch is a powerful feeling. The house emerges from a sheet of drawings. The book takes shape from the imagination of the writer.

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10 Things You Can Do to Make Today More Meaningful

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According to Benjamin Wiker and Johnathan Witt, authors of A Meaningful World, “…nature is a work of genius, like a Shakespearian play is a work of genius — both are rich, deep, and complex, full of meaning at every level.”

Do you find yourself wanting for more meaningful experiences?

Sometimes the best way to get what you’re craving is to give it first. Don’t wait for someone else to make the first move or for a situation to spontaneously occur. Be liberal with, and unrestrained in, whatever you share. Create your own meaningful moments, and your life will be all the richer for it.

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Going Against the Flow

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In life, we’re often told to “go with the flow.” Meaning, the flow of energy, the flow of events as they unfold. The implication here is that we shouldn’t struggle against forces beyond our control. To do so is to expend valuable energy that’s better exerted elsewhere.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about this going with the flow business, and what it all means.

It’s my feeling that people who are passive accepters will always go with the flow, no matter what. And that’s the majority of people. But then you have the other brand of personality – the movers and shakers. They’re fewer and farther between, sure. These people seem to have that killer gut instinct telling them when it’s right to go against the flow.

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How to Become Comfortable in Your Own Skin

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comfortable own skin

Did you ever enter a room, see people talking and laughing together and wonder: how are they so at ease? Does it feel like a big deal to just “jump into a conversation” or assert your opinion? Do you have trouble relaxing and just being yourself in the company of others?

Many of us carry around the notion that other people are more emotionally and intellectually solid than we are. Is this true? Is it some kind of glitch in the human brain which makes us regard others as being better or superior?

If we press the pause button and really stop, what happens? We realize that our comfort level has much more to do with ourselves than anybody else. Here are some ways to become more effective, simply by feeling more at peace with who (and how) we are.

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Resurrecting Family Rituals

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family rituals

Nothing provides a sense of place and a feeling of fulfillment quite like participating in family traditions or rituals. These can be something you do together for special holidays, or weekly observances used to maintain your close family ties.

Participating in special family rituals can evoke various feelings, set different moods, and elicit past memories. If you choose those traditions or habits that make you and your family feel good, you can bring about feelings of happiness and joy.

Unfortunately, the demands of juggling work and home make it easy to forget about family traditions that have been passed down from one generation to the next. These things also make it difficult to consider beginning new rituals that your children can pass along to their heirs.

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The Art of Thoughtful Wishing

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Many people equate money and the accumulation of it the fulfillment of their desires. We believe it will bring us happiness, yet no matter how much we seem to earn, we always want more. The pursuit of money is what causes many people to confuse those things they want with what they really need. So many people go through life not realizing that happiness does not happen when we yearn for things we lack.

In addition to longing for money, we also tend to yearn for things that we have lost or things that have passed us by. Our memories tend only to remember what we want them to remember, distorting our images of the past. This type of wishful thinking distracts us from enjoying what we have, right now.

We spend so much of our lives regretting things that have already happened, or hoping for things to come, that we forget to live for today. Follow these steps and you will learn to live in the present, and appreciate those blessings you do have.

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Understanding the Role Humility Plays in Everyday Life

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“Humility, like darkness, reveals the heavenly lights.” – Henry David Thoreau

When do you consider your life “finished”? At what point can you hang up your hat and say that you truly have done everything you wanted in life, you are perfect in every way and that you have learned all you need to know? The answer for all of us is the same – never. None of us can ever say with absolutely certainty that we have truly arrived and there is nothing more for us to do. Just like life is a never ending journey, the goal of being all that we can be in life is also never ending. We all have work to do – be it in our personal lives, our careers or in our community. There are always areas we can work on improving, new ideas we can learn and new experiences we can have and share with others.

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