“Every morning make some time for: (1) Thankfulness. Express gratitude to someone, some place, or something every day. This includes thinking it, writing it, and sharing it. (2) Insight. Gain insight through reading the paper or a book, or listening to a podcast. (3) Meditation. Spend fifteen minutes alone, breathing, visualizing or with sound. (4) Exercise. We monks did yoga, but you can do some basic stretches or a workout. Thankfulness. Insight. Meditation. Exercise. T.I.M.E. A new way to put time into your morning.”
Jay Shetty, Think Like A Monk (Page 128)
Quotes from Think Like A Monk
“We tend to wear our ability to get by on little sleep as some sort of badge of honor that validates our work ethic. But what it is is a profound failure of self-respect and of priorities.”
Maria Popova, via Think Like A Monk (Page 125)
“…I learned the one infallible trick to successfully getting up earlier: I had to go to sleep earlier. That was it. I’d spent my entire life pushing the limits of each day, sacrificing tomorrow because I didn’t want to miss out on today. But once I finally let that go and started going to sleep earlier, waking up at four became easier and easier. And as it became easier, I found that I could do it without the help of anyone or anything besides my own body and the natural world around it.”
Jay Shetty, Think Like A Monk (Page 124)
“Dharma isn’t just passion and skills. Dharma is passion in the service of others. your passion is for you. Your purpose is for others. Your passion becomes a purpose when you use it to serve others. Your dharma has to fill a need in the world.”
Jay Shetty, Think Like A Monk (Page 122)
“It is trust in the limits of the self that makes us open and it is trust in the gifts of others that makes us secure. We come to realize that we don’t have to do everything, that we can’t do everything, that what I can’t do is someone else’s gift and responsibility… My limitations makes space for the gifts of other people.”
Sister Joan Chittister, via Think Like A Monk (Page 100)
“It’s better to do one’s own dharma imperfectly than to do another’s perfectly.”
Jay Shetty, Think Like A Monk (Page 99)
“A monk is a traveler, but the journey is inward, bringing us ever closer to our most authentic, confident, powerful self. There is no need to embark on an actual Year-in Provence-type quest to find your passion and purpose, as if it’s a treasure buried in some distant land, waiting to be discovered. Your dharma is already with you. It’s always been with you. It’s woven into your being. If we keep our minds open ad curious, our dharmas announce themselves.”
Jay Shetty, Think Like A Monk (Page 98)
“You can’t be anything you want. But you can be everything you are.”
Jay Shetty, Think Like A Monk (Page 98)
“If we’re only excited when people say nice things about our work, it’s a sign that we’re not passionate about the work itself. And if we indulge our interests and skills, but nobody responds to them, then our passion is without purpose. If either piece is missing, we’re not living our dharma.”
Jay Shetty, Think Like A Monk (Page 97)
“Satisfaction comes from believing in the value of what you do.”
Jay Shetty, Think Like A Monk (Page 81)
“Everything you do in the day from washing to eating breakfast, having meetings, driving to work… watching television or deciding instead to read… everything you do is your spiritual life. It is only a matter of how consciously you do these ordinary things…”
Laurence Freeman, via Think Like A Monk (Page 77)
“Happiness and fulfillment come only from mastering the mind and connecting with the soul–not from objects or attainments. Success doesn’t guarantee happiness, and happiness doesn’t require success. They can feed each other, and we can have them at the same time, but they are not intertwined.”
Jay Shetty, Think Like A Monk (Page 69)
“When we deny fear, our problems follow us. In fact, they’re probably getting bigger, and bigger, and at some point something will force us to deal with them. When all else fails, pain does make us pay attention. If we don’t learn from the signal that alerts us to a problem, we’ll end up learning from the results of the problem itself, which is far less desirable. But if we face our fear—we stay, we deal with the fire, we have the tough conversation—we become stronger as a result.”
Jay Shetty, Think Like A Monk (Page 62)
“Think of something great that happened to you. Perhaps it was the birth of a child or getting that new job you wanted. Let yourself feel that joy for a moment. Now rewind to the events that occurred just before it. What was going on in your life before the birth of your child or before you were selected for that job? Perhaps it was months and months of trying unsuccessfully to conceive or being rejected from three other jobs you’d applied for. Now try to see that narrative as a whole story—a progression from the bad to the good. Open yourself to the idea that perhaps what happened during the challenging time was actually clearing the way for what you’re now celebrating, or made you feel even happier about the experience that came after it. Now take a moment to express gratitude for those challenges and weave them into the story of your life.”
Jay Shetty, Think Like A Monk (Page 61)
“Ask yourself: ‘What am I afraid of losing?’ Start with the externals: Is it your car, your house, your looks? Write down everything you think of. Now think about the internals: your reputation, your status, your sense of belonging? Write those down too. These combined lists are likely to be the greatest sources of pain in your life—your fear of having these things taken away. Now start thinking about changing your mental relationship with those things so that you are less attached to them. Remember—you can still fully love and enjoy your parter, your children, your home, your money, from a space of nonattachment. It’s about understanding and accepting that all things are temporary and that we can’t truly own or control anything, so that we can fully appreciate these things and they can enhance our life rather than be a source of griping and fear.”
Jay Shetty, Think Like A Monk (Page 57)
“We want to see [fear] as its own entity, separate from us. When we talk about our emotions, we usually say we are that emotion. I am angry. I am sad. I am afraid. Talking to our fear separates it from us and helps us understand that the fear is not us, it is just something we’re experiencing. When you meet someone who gives off a negative vibe, you feel it, but you don’t think that vibe is you. It’s the same with our emotions—they are something we’re feeling, but they are not us. Try shifting from I am angry to I feel angry. I feel sad. I feel afraid. A simple change, but a profound one because it puts our emotions in their rightful place.”
Jay Shetty, Think Like A Monk (Page 55)
“When you deal with fear and hardship, you realize that you’re capable of dealing with fear and hardship. This gives you a new perspective: the confidence that when bad things happen, you will find ways to handle them. With that increased objectivity, you become better able to differentiate what’s actually worth being afraid of and what’s not.”
Jay Shetty, Think Like A Monk (Page 51)
“Being scared of exam results was what I call a branch. As you develop your relationship with your fear, you’ll have to distinguish between branches—the immediate fears that come up during your self-interview—and the root. Tracking my fear of exam results and the other ‘branch’ fears that appeared led me to the root: fearing I couldn’t make my parents happy.”
Jay Shetty, Think Like A Monk (Page 49)
“Forgiveness has to flow in both directions. None of us is perfect, and though there will be situations where you are blameless, there are also times when there are missteps on both sides of a conflict. When you cause pain and others cause you pain, it’s as if your hearts get twisted together into an uncomfortable knot. When we forgive, we start to separate our pain from theirs and to heal ourselves emotionally. But when we ask for forgiveness at the same time, we untwist together. This is a bit trickier, because we’re much more comfortable finding fault in other people and then forgiving it. We’re not used to admitting fault and taking responsibility for what we create in our lives.”
Jay Shetty, Think Like A Monk (Page 43)
“Before we find our way to forgiveness, we are stuck in anger. We may even want revenge, to return the pain that a person has inflicted on us. An eye for an eye. Revenge is the mode of ignorance—it’s often said that you can’t fix yourself by breaking someone else. Monks don’t hinge their choices and feelings on others’ behaviors. You believe revenge will make you feel better because of how the other person will react. But when you make your vindictive play and the person doesn’t have the response you fantasized about—guess what? You only feel more pain. Revenge backfires.”
Jay Shetty, Think Like A Monk (Page 39)