“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”

H.D. Thoreau

What would you answer if your friend asked you this question on a scale of 1-5:

“How do you like your life?”

If your answer is 5, they call it flourishing in positive psychology.

Please let me know how you did it.

If your answer is 3 or 4, it is called surviving and below that there’s floundering.

What can you do to improve this score?

This site is my summary of this topic. The site name denotes the notion that sometimes we may need a little nudge (or a powerful push) in the right direction.

I believe QUOTES can serve this purpose.

The “aha” is deep and often of such magnitude as to leave the person stunned or breathless.

W. Miller

With life changes, as BJ Fogg said "there are only three things we can do that will create lasting change: change our environment, change our habits in tiny ways or have an epiphany."

With the first two options, if 20% is insight, 80% is building the mental muscle needed to implement the change. We require this mental muscle to alter our behavioural and thought patterns so that the change is possible. How has it worked for you so far?

But with the third option, with an epithany, we have such a powerful revelation that it produces 100% sustained motivation for a desired change to occur.

The only problem however, with such a quantum change is that it is not possible to generate.

Or is it?

I believe QUOTES can serve this purpose.

There are always three things you can do in any situation.

E. Tolle

Whatever our initial level of motivation is, there are usually a few things you can do in different challenging situations.

These options are universal, they apply to all situations.

The idea came from Eckhart Tolle. In one of his workshops on YouTube he said we can always:

• leave the situation (workplace, relationship, place of residence),
  
• do something about the situation (try to repair the relationship, quit a harming habit or begin a healthy one, try to work less.....or more),
• accept the situation as it is.

Oh, and there is also the fourth option, says Tolle, that is: continue to suffer.

That would refer to the aforementioned floundering or, if you answered 1 or 2 to the first question, the genuine suffering.

Life is hard

When life is hard, which is almost always, we can always choose one of a few options.

Below is the summary of those options in an interactive manner.