Get in the FLOW!! - It Will Reduce Your Stress and Make You Look and Feel Younger

After a few days of intense work on the book, which as a reminder can be purchased at http://www.fiftytworesolutions.com and now has a Facebook page too at www.facebook.com/ItsNotRocketScience52Resolutions, I'm back to the blogging.  It all reminds me of possibly my FAVORITE resolution in the book.  It is Resolution #9 and to read all about it, you have to buy the book, but essentially it advocates Doing What You Love and Loving What You Do!!

The stress and negative energy of working at a job that you dislike can kill you!! Only you can make a change, discover what you love, and pursue that passion with a vengeance.  It (finding what you love and making it not just your avocation but your vocation) actually has the effect of making you look and feel younger. It is that job where you look as forward to Monday morning as you do to any other day and time of the week (like some people look forward to Friday afternoon at 5 PM).  Some people were born to be police officers and that's their passion, others were put on this Earth to be artists or musicians or writers or caretakers of animals. Obviously, almost everyone has to pay the bills and be realistic and sometimes people don't  discover their true passions until later in life but as stated in the Resolution #9 chapter, "..it's never too late to make a positive change in your occupation and/or vocation." Remember, life is short and the stress and unhappiness that result from working full-time in a job that you dislike can harm your health, raise your blood pressure and stress level, and basically - speed up the aging process.

I think I already knew it but the last year has really made me realize that my real passions are writing and exercise/sports.  Through writing It's Not Rocket Science: 52 Resolutions (the book), articles for LIVESTRONG.com, and this Blog - I feel younger and have found what it is that allows me to achieve "Flow."  Flow (proposed by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi) is a positive psychology concept that essentially is characterized by complete absorption in what one does.  It is the mental state of operation where a person performing an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity.  You can read more about Csikszentmihalyi and Flow on the Internet and elsewhere but if you are able to find the activity that allows you to perform in Flow and also make a living doing it, you are lucky and and will have probably achieved Resolution #9 and are Doing What You Love and Loving What You Do.  Find the Flow!!