I made my vow not only because I empathised with my father’s loneliness, but also because I wanted some of his wisdom to rub off on me. I was envious of the community and extended family around him that received his attention daily. He’s become the de facto community leader; he entertains the family, listens to their problems and helps maintain peace and order within the small commune.

In Jeff Olson’s book The Slight Edge, he explains how the Apollo rocket flying to the moon was off course 97 percent of the time. It was only on course three percent of the time. Continually re-adjusting itself, it reached the moon—safely—and returned to tell the tale. Likewise, we must continually re-invent our lives. We must nurture this reinvention as a way of life. This process of alignment isn’t easy; it demands we get out of our comfort-zone, hit the ground running and overcome many trials before we discover our path.

“Self-help is autobiography.” ~ James Altucher I love this guy. He looks like a nerd and always talks about his failures, yet he’s intelligent, and his failures have made him extra resilient. He recognises that vulnerability is a superpower when you know how to use it. Altucher is one of the most popular bloggers in the world, and has featured in all the top publications like Forbes, Entrepreneur and Financial Times. He’s ranked as the number four influencer on LinkedIn, hosts a top-rated podcast, and has written (and self-published) best-selling books. In a New York times article, Alex Williams says of Altucher:

Ninety-seven percent of all self-help advice is generic bullshit. (This number is not a result of scientific research, but rather my opinion based on the last hundred articles I read this month.) That includes many viral articles, New York Times best-selling books and my earlier blog posts. This content doesn’t compel the reader to make significant change. Or to put in another way, the reader reads it and gets inspired for a few hours or days—and then it slowly fades away to make way for newer information waiting to hit. The information available to us is incessant. This week it’s affirmations. Next week it’s how to surrender to life using Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching. (Incidentally, this is definitely part of the three percent that’s the real deal.)

I stuck to my daily practices rather well, and they became my pillars of well-being and daily living. My writing improved tremendously, as I had committed to 1,000 words per day, which meant I showed up, put out a lot of work and felt great doing so. I let myself down in my sugar binging. I would follow a low carb diet, then mess it up with too much sugar. I also varied my exercise regimen so much that I ended up injured for the final two months of the year.

I now look at goal-setting not as a mere one-, two- or three-year plan, but rather more like a 20-year life plan. I think more in terms of creating systems than setting goals. With these systems, I’m doing something on a regular basis that makes me better and more content in the long run, regardless of immediate outcomes.

I don’t get the instant gratification that achieving a goal can give, but I also don’t carry the stress of not reaching a goal.

7 Quotes on why Writing is Hard but Rewarding

The DEEPSEA Sea-dweller watch I’d been eyeing had arrived, and I was to pay the balance and collect. I already owned four watches, and this was my fifth—all purchased within the past two years.

However, over the weeks prior to the call, I began to have some doubts. It all started innocently enough. I questioned whether I needed another costly watch. This then snowballed into an existential money crisis.

I put the watch on my wrist. It was rather heavy and looked too big for my hand. I felt a gnawing inside me, a heaviness in my chest and a mental nausea. It was similar to the feeling after a gluttonous bout of eating chocolate or Big Macs.

I shook my head in disbelief, trying to explain that I had a business and enough money to cover all my expenses for the 10-day trip to the States, but that I didn’t think of bringing proof. Having a British passport and applying for a self-funded low-residency MFA program, I didn’t think I required the statement.

I also wanted to say that I had an ESTA visa, which meant I could visit the States anytime.

He shook his head, handed me a refusal sheet that covered the embassy legally, and waved his fingers as if I were a fugitive seeking asylum. My face turned red. As I walked out, I knew that I’d messed up. I had been too arrogant.

Ernest Hemingway was such a man.

He was a great writer, but much more. He provided us with so many lessons in life—not only in his writing and quotes, but also through the way he lived. Love him or hate him, he was always in action and living life to its fullest. Here are 7 of his most striking (and instructive) quotes:

Authenticity comes from the Latin word “Author” and simply means to become the author of one’s life. Being authentic means coming from a real place within, where our actions and words are congruent with our beliefs and values.

Authenticity is not a destination but a journey of deep self-discovery. It requires self-knowledge and self-awareness. Living authentically is not stagnant. It is constantly shifting and taking on new forms and we must continually be learning about ourselves, challenging old beliefs, facing our fears, and courageously reaching deep within ourselves to find out what makes our heart sing and our spirit soar.

“An emotion is a complex psychological state that involves three distinct components: a subjective experience, a physiological response, and a behavioural or expressive response.” (Hockenbury & Hockenbury, 2007)

5 Ways to Practice Mindfulness

I’ve been trying to cut out sugar in all its forms from my diet, especially when it comes in the form of a Yorkie chocolate bar, cheesecake or any type of cupcake. Try as I might, I find myself succumbing to my sweet tooth. I can restrain myself till the weekend, and then what starts off as a little indulgence ends up in a gluttonous splurge on anything resembling sugar.

I walked into my favourite restaurant and was pleasantly surprised to see that our table was reserved for only four, rather than the eight that were supposed to meet up. The other four had cancelled for different reasons and the three that remained happened to be the ones I was most comfortable with.

I didn’t run the half-marathon I planned for in Paris. I haven’t written a single word towards the book I want to publish. My company missed the sales target that we had set for this year.

Right now you may be asking yourself, why am I reading this article? Will it help me in a way that none of the other million articles out there didn’t? But it’s true – I do hear this voice in my head. Let me just read a bit more and see what this is about.

There are so many memories that are stored in my unconscious under the folder “regret” —The girl who approached me to ask me out in high school and I told her I had other plans. Why I chose to leave the exciting challenge of working in London to come back to my comfort-zone in Ghana. The time I watched myself on video screaming at my 3-year old son for coming out of the wrong side of the car.

A journey of self-discovery is also one of self-enquiry, so the more information we gather on ourselves, the clearer we become. When we are looking for a partner, we ask everything about them: from their likes to their dislikes.

Our physiology affects our state of mind much more than we like to acknowledge. We need to understand the difference between a state of mind, a feeling that is temporary and general well-being, which is an overall state of affairs and is permanent.

Happiness is a fleeting feeling, which makes us feel elated for minutes, hours or even days—watching your football team win a game in the last few minutes, enjoying a night out with friends or feeling good after a great yoga session—but won’t last for the rest of your life.