contendedness Archives — Page 4 of 4

A Simple Path to SMART Living 365–Just Smile!

By Kathy Gottberg
Filed under: Meaningful, Thankful

Do you have any idea how powerful a simple smile is? I sure didn’t. Last night I watched the attached TED Talk where Ron Gutman, the CEO of HealthTap, explained the benefits of something we can do every single day—smile.

Gutman said he got his start from a study done at Berkley that tracked graduates over a 30-year period. What they did is first examine and then measure the smiles from students found in their graduation yearbook. From the smiles they measured they were able to predict how fulfilling and long-lasting the individuals married relationships would be, how well they would score on a standardized test for well-being, and finally how inspiring they would be to others. Wow—makes you wish you could go back and take that photo again right? [Read more…]

SMART Living is seeing the Good AND Laughing on A Regular Basis

By Kathy Gottberg
Filed under: Thankful

Let’s face it. We live in an amazing world filled with all sorts of incredible things. Yet, because humans tend to adjust to just about anything very quickly, we usually forget how great our lives are. SMART Living asks us to slow down, look around and pay attention—and then be thankful. I found this great short comedy video on FaceBook today and I think it says something very important in a short, funny and irreverent way. What do you think?

The “T” in Thankful Completes The Path To SMART Living 365

By Kathy Gottberg
Filed under: Thankful

Happy SMART Day Everyone!

The most important practice to living SMART 365 is to feel thankful and grateful on a daily basis. Luckily, it is also one of the easiest. Once you begin to put gratitude at the top of your daily to-do list, you will immediately begin to see positive changes in the way you look at your life. My own experience shows it is impossible to be truly grateful and unhappy at the same time. But I’m not alone in my thinking; these days there are books and studies that prove that the science of gratitude can profoundly increase the quality of your life. [Read more…]

Seeking Art and Beauty Everywhere—the “A” in SMART Living

By Kathy Gottberg
Filed under: Aware

Happy SMART Day Everyone!

When most people search for happiness, they seldom think of beauty or being artful unless they claim to be an artist. I certainly used to think that way. When focused on creating a happy and successful life, I seldom realized that unless I was also creating something artful or beautiful, that dream often eluded me. I think that is because there is something inside each of us that finds peace, harmony, awe and connection whenever we see and recognize beauty. And if we don’t see beauty, then no matter how close we are to achieving any goal, something seems to be missing. That’s why I believe it is critical to create beauty when living SMART 365.

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Meaning In Life—Explaining the M in SMART Living

By Kathy Gottberg
Filed under: Meaningful

Happy SMART Day Everyone!

In order to be happy and fulfilled, all people everywhere share one fundamental need regardless of their background, race, religion, education or any number of cultural differences—that one thing is “meaning.” When we have meaning, we believe our life has a purpose and that our being here matters. In other words, in order to live SMART every day, a sense of meaning is critical.

One of the champions for the value of meaning was a man named Viktor Frankl. As a three-year survivor of the horror of Nazi concentration camps, he eventually became an eminent psychotherapist. While many of Frankl’s fellow prisoners died in the camps, he believed that a key reason for his survival was the inner strength he derived from meaning.

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The R in SMART Living Stands For Responsible

By Kathy Gottberg
Filed under: Rightsized

Happy SMART Day Everyone! Today is a great day to talk about the “R” in SMART Living—even if I am temporarily skipping a couple of letters to do it. That’s because the R stands for “Responsible” and one way of being responsible is being “response-able.” That’s right folks, although there are a couple of ways we believe that SMART Living asks us to be responsible…when it comes down to it, unless we are consistently able to respond in a way that creates peace and happiness we will always be susceptible to circumstances, events and other people. Once we take full responsibility for our actions, and yeah it isn’t always easy, then we can decide how we will proceed.

[Read more…]