2007 I had success with one of my online projects (didn’t become rich but it paid my bills at that time). I was living a comfortable life in the sun in Thailand and everything was good, except nothing was good. I was in a great relationship, lived in a beautiful house and had money to buy whatever I wanted (that means lots of gadgets and cameras for me, not really that big watch type of guy). On top of that I had a lot of free time to do what I felt like doing. I felt so empty and I felt my life had no purpose… so I went traveling and this helped me feel a bit better. It was distraction and as long as I kept seeing new stuff I felt ok.

The problem was way deeper. I was lacking a mission. Before one online project worked out I had two that more or less failed (the first one really failed, we gave the second one up because it didn’t scale well) but at least I loved those projects. The one that became a bread earner was not something I was overly interested in. I just did it because it made sense at that time (obvious product to market fit, first mover advantage…) and we needed the money.

I had to change something in my life and thought about a new mission.

Happiness = Mission + X…?

I was always really into Psychology after reading a book about manipulation when I turned 18. My aunt who is a hippie turned Buddhist about 25 years ago also raised my interest in meditation, so I went ahead and spent a lot of time learning more about Psychology and meditation.

Here is what it did to me:

• I truly realized what matters in life and I’m happier than ever before.
• I overcame a cancer phobia I had for 10 years (after my father died from cancer).
• I gained the ability to remove myself from situations and just observe what’s going on inside of me.
• I gained a hell of a lot of emotional freedom which matters way more than anything else.
• I became calmer, more balanced and simply a nicer person.
• I got comfortable with the concept of death (not suicidal yo!).
• It brought the kid in me back to life. Remember when it was amazing to simply run around trees? It starts to get amazing again!
• Cool huh?

I consider what I learned the most important lessons in my life, and I made a free online course out of it for you to check out. There is no hidden sales pitch (I don’t even want your email but if you want updates you can subscribe to my newsletter in the sidebar). I’m also no guru. I really just created this course because A) it would make sure I was learning this stuff properly and B) because its so awesome stuff more people should discover it.

It is my spin on Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) and what you learn hopefully shifts your perspective (like it shifted mine). Just having this shift in your perspective is already pretty powerful so… yep I seriously suggest you check it out. Everything is backed up with psychological (MBCT / CBT / Positive Psychology) studies so I’m not just making this stuff up.

So what’s in that course?

Chapter 1: Happiness, Control and a Simple Model
In this chapter you learn about the ABC model which is so freaking essential everyone has to know it. It explains how thoughts and emotions are related to each other.

Chapter 1 Practice: The ABCDEF Worksheet
In this practice lesson you learn how to work with the ABC model. If this gets too “school like” for you simply write your thoughts and emotions down every evening for a week and see what it does to you. Writing things down does make a difference and helps you to see how thoughts lead to emotions and how emotions can also impact your thoughts.

Chapter 2: Awareness & our Spectrum of Perception
In this chapter you learn about the two states of being. One is being and the other is doing. This is important to understand because all our life we are trained to be good in the state of doing while our natural state is the state of being. If you learn to get into the state of being more often your life will change dramatically. This brings back the kid in you and puts things into perspective.

Chapter 2 Practice: Mindfulness Meditation
You train your awareness by doing mindfulness meditation. In this lesson I explain what meditation is really all about and give you some tips on how to meditate. You won’t come across any spiritual yada yada. Meditation is just a mental exercise that can bring you great benefits like being able to take yourself out of situations and just observe. It also makes you more stress resilient.

Chapter 3: Rumination & Faulty Thinking
In this lesson you learn about rumination or thinking in a loop. If you enjoy thinking, you know that your brain sometimes simply doesn’t want to stop. It keeps going on and on and on thinking about things over and over. It is important that you become aware of it and…

Chapter 3 Extended: Faulty Thinking – What is it and How to Get Over It?
… realize some of the typical ways of faulty thinking we humans tend to have. You will also learn a few ways to overcome your faulty thinking.

Chapter 3 Practice: 11 Steps to Stop Ruminating
Learn some more ways to stop ruminating. These steps will help you to calm your mind and simply worry less so you have more time to enjoy life.

Chapter 4: Do Good, be Happy
If you do not believe in karma you do not have to. Studies in the field of Positive Psychology show that doing good things and being kind is one of the best ways to make YOURSELF happy.

Chapter 4 Practice: Is coming soon..
These will be my final words in this course. Something epic, maybe I hike up a mountain and shoot a video there!

You can easily cover all this in about two hours. These are two hours well spent. Invest the time in yourself and upgrade yourself for a lifetime.

Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy is super powerful and hopefully will become more widely available in the near future. What you learn here is not meant to help you fix problems (even though this is possible too), but it is meant to upgrade your life to a whole new level. Good stuff!

P.s. There are also books about MBCT. Seriously dude, this is life changing stuff!

Via Phandroid