Matt Hogan's Blog

A Recipe For Happiness

Published on June 1, 2022

I think happiness is a recipe.

One that is unique to each individual person.

Wait for the ingredients to cook themselves and you’ll be waiting an awful long-time.

Rush the cooking process and you’ll burn, contort, abuse, and otherwise mess up the meal.

There’s an art to cooking just like there’s an art to happiness.

And just like a chef would bring a level of presence and care to the kitchen when prepping meals, you too need to bring that same kind of energy to the preparation of your happiness in life.

One of my personal favorite recipes for happiness is:

8 cups (hours) of sleep
6 cups of teaching
2 cups of writing
2 cups of connecting
1 cup of exercise
1 cup of reading
.5 cups of meditation

With 3.5 cups of space left (in the day) to work with.

Mixed altogether and served with some sprinkles of spontaneity on top.

And it’s a formula that I loosely follow each day.

What you have to figure out for yourself is, what does your recipe consist of?

And are you preparing your batch of happiness fresh every day? Or are you trying to eat from stale batches of happiness that was prepared long ago?

Are you waiting for the ingredients to combine themselves? Are you rushing as you prepare your meals? Or are you taking your time and approaching your craft like a chef would?

Of all the recipes you have memorized in your life, this might be one of the most important to not only memorize—but to internalize.

The Ultimate Life Compass

Published on May 31, 2022

Wisdom is knowledge and experience internalized.

…It is the ultimate life compass.

When you think about each of the regretful decisions and cringe-worthy mistakes you’ve made in your life, at their root, they were made because of a lack of wisdom.

With that in mind, it’s important to point out that the less you seek to develop wisdom in your life, the less calibrated your compass will be.

And if there’s one area you should always make time for in your life, it’s the calibrating of your life’s compass.

How to do that? Through careful and deliberate reflection, exploratory writing, and open conversation.

And saying you don’t have time is the same as the lumberjack saying he doesn’t have time to sharpen his ax. When you make time for wisdom, wisdom will make time for you.

The rewards are exponential. Both in time saved and better decisions enjoyed.

100x Your Gratitude

Published on May 30, 2022

Gratitude is usually about appreciating all that we have.

What if, to take gratitude further, we appreciated all that we didn’t have, too?

Things like:

Sicknesses/diseases/disorders
Greed/envy/wrath
War/crime/hate

This exercise will 100x your gratitude list at least.

Stand The Heat

Published on May 29, 2022

I woke up this morning with regret.

I wanted to run the Buffalo Half Marathon, but decided to skip it at the last minute.

When I saw the newsreels of 5,000+ people running (and finishing before I even woke up), I felt it in my gut that I made the wrong choice.

My comfort zone won the battle.

But, the war wasn’t over.

I decided I’d run my own half marathon. Right in my neighborhood. And that’s what I did.

The first half of the run was relatively smooth and uneventful. The second half was sheer pain.

My knees, ankles, hip flexors, and achilles tendons would shoot pain up my leg after every—single—freaking—step. And I wanted to stop after every—single—one—of—those—freaking—steps. But, I didn’t.

My mantras were:

Mind calm—body calm.
Pace, posture, breathing.
Pain now—no regrets later.
You’ve done this before—you can do it again.
I know my finish line (13.1) and this ain’t it (until it was).

Which I would repeat throughout the run to remind me that the mind will always give up before the body.

Why do we sometimes put ourselves through hell?

So we can learn how to stand (and keep moving forward through) the heat.

Also so when things are heavenly, we can truly appreciate them.

I tell you: water never tastes as good; calories never satisfy as well; and relaxing never feels as rewarding—as when you finish putting yourself through an intense challenge.

I wouldn’t do this everyday—but, it’s good to do something like this on occasion.

Keep your mind sharp. Cultivate gratitude. Expand your limits.

And live with no regrets.

Fate vs. Legacy

Published on May 28, 2022

Fate is what results when life decides for you.

Legacy is what results when you decide your life.

Flowering Reality

Published on May 27, 2022

Thinking love is not the same as expressing love.

Thinking kindness is not the same as expressing kindness.

Thinking gratitude is not the same as expressing gratitude.

When you move your most beautiful thoughts into reality, the byproduct is a more beautiful reality.

Beautiful thoughts left unexpressed are quickly buried beneath the forever churning soils of the mind and the result is a forgotten about seed and unchanged reality.

Help flower our shared reality by intentionally nurturing, harvesting, and sharing all of what’s beautiful inside of you. However and whenever you can. Our reality needs it.

Reality On Repeat

Published on May 26, 2022

Your current reality doesn’t have to be your forever reality.

You can learn new skills.
You can read new content.
You can try new activities/ hobbies.
You can change the people around you.
You can confront the baggage of your past and change how you see the world.

Or you can not do any of those things and continue to live your current reality on repeat.

The question you should reflect on carefully is: if I copied and pasted the general trends in all areas of my life (i.e. health, wealth, relationships) from the past year into this next upcoming year, would the results leave me feeling disappointed or thrilled?

Anything short of thrilled should raise an eyebrow in your mind.

If you want to change your reality then you’re going to have to change something in your reality. And the best way to do that is quickly—before your comfort zone can even process what’s happening. Here’s the plan: take an inertia-breaking action (the hardest part) and then keep the momentum going forward for as long as you can possibly manage it.

Inertia is the better-reality-killer.

Quick:

Enroll in a dope course!
Read the first page of that book you’ve been wanting to start!
Sign up for a free Martial Arts class!
Invite someone cool to coffee!
Schedule a meeting with a therapist!

Don’t complicate the first step. Just take it. Break the inertia that has been boxing you into your reality re-run for too damn long.

Make the decision to live today for the tomorrow you can be thrilled about.

Matt Hogan's Blog Posts