Lite Mind, Castleknock Community Centre, Castleknock (2025)

29/11/2021

Even an oaf like me can become naturally grateful- here's how

I am not a naturally grateful person- in fact, I’ve always been pretty much the opposite.

Gratitude doesn’t come easily to me.

My wife is the total opposite- nearly every day she’ll express gratitude for at least one thing in her life.

Her ability to feel and express gratitude is central to her happiness- they go hand-in-hand.

There is a mountain of research from the past 20 years that shows how effective gratitude is at making us happier.

Not only does it make us happier, but the research also shows that feeling and expressing gratitude helps build resilience, increases feelings of energy, it helps us cope with stress and gives us a greater sense of purpose.

So how does a grumpy, middle-aged oaf like me become more grateful?

Like every good practice, gratitude has to be nurtured and harnessed.

You can’t turn it on like a switch and expect it to be there for you.

Nor can you force it.

Simply saying or even thinking “I’m so grateful for X” just doesn’t cut it- real gratitude is accompanied by heartfelt appreciation.

So how do you harness it?

Many years ago when I first started studying happiness, gratitude popped up pretty much immediately and so following all of the expert advice, I bought my gratitude journal.

But I didn't really take to it. Now I’m not dissing it- it works for millions of people, but I found it to be a bit of a chore.

It also felt forced and inauthentic.

I needed to develop a different way to practice gratitude.

I come from a meditation background, I even taught meditation for many years.

So I figured, why don’t I incorporate gratitude into a meditation-type practice?

The exercise evolved over the years into what has now become one of the main elements in Lite Mind, the breakthrough technique that helps you develop a happier and more fulfilled life.

In total, I developed 64 audio exercises: short morning ones that last about 2 minutes and longer evening ones that last 8-10 minutes.

Each exercise is different and you don’t practice them every day.

By doing the exercises, you train your brain to tune into the good in your everyday life, and as a result, within a few weeks, you naturally become more grateful.

And you don’t have to take my word for it.

As the fantastic neuroscientist Risk Hanson shows in his book “Hardwiring Happiness”, by thinking about the good in our lives or even creating good thoughts, and holding onto these good thoughts, absorbing them for 20 or so seconds, and doing this regularly, brain scans show that these good thoughts get converted into neural structure.

In short, these positive memories activate positive emotions.

And the more you do this, the more your brain will change.

It’s called experience-dependent neuroplasticity.

So the Lite Mind exercises prompt you to think of things to be grateful for. And after just a few weeks of practice, your mind starts to tune into the good things in your everyday life and you become naturally more appreciative.

These exercises have had a very positive impact on my happiness levels.

I’m not saying I’m happy 100% of the time, that’s just not realistic.

But what I can tell you is that I am far happier than I've ever been.

I’m still an oaf, as my wife will tell you, but I’m a somewhat happier and more cheerful one.

Get Lite Mind for free: To show you how amazing the Lite Mind exercises are, simply click on the following link to get a free, breakthrough happiness exercise:

https://lite-mind.com/pages/free-lite-mind-exercise-1?fbclid=IwAR3p9uxQUjCDP36HVkhd-zNOP3jXUDIr6uEX5W-YODK-S3BnImZf-1S2vuY

06/09/2021

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗻𝘂𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿 𝟭 𝗶𝗻𝗴𝗿𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮 𝗵𝗮𝗽𝗽𝘆 𝗹𝗶𝗳𝗲 (𝗮𝗰𝗰𝗼𝗿𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗱𝗲𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗹𝗲𝗱 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗼𝗻 𝗮𝗱𝘂𝗹𝘁 𝗱𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹𝗼𝗽𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁)

For over 83 years scientists at Harvard University have undertaken the longest and most comprehensive study ever of adult development with the view to finding out the key ingredients to leading a happy and healthy life.

Starting in 1938, the study tracked the lives of 724 men, divided into 2 groups.

The first group were Harvard University students, young men born into privilege.

(Women weren’t in the original study because the university was still all male.)

The second group was made up of boys chosen specifically because they came from troubled, disadvantaged families in some of the poorest areas in Boston.

The researchers studied these men from their teenage years all the way up to old age.

Each participant completed a detailed questionnaire every year.

They were interviewed in their homes, provided medical records from their doctors, had blood taken, and had their brains scanned.

The researchers also got to interview their partners and children every year.

This research is still ongoing and has been expanded to include the men’s offspring, who now number over 1,300 and are in their 50s and 60s.

And after thousands of hours of research, tens of thousands of pages of data, what is the conclusion?

According to Robert Waldinger, the current director of the research program, one thing surpasses all the rest in terms of importance:

"The clearest message that we get from the study is this: Good relationships keep us happier and healthier."

“It turns out that people who are more socially connected to family, to friends, to community are happier, they’re physically healthier and they live longer than people who are less well connected,” he said.

“People who are more isolated than they want to be from others find that they are less happy, their health declines earlier in midlife, their brain functioning declines sooner and they live shorter lives than people who are not lonely,” Waldinger explained.

Furthermore, Waldinger said that when it comes to friends, it’s not about the number of friends you have, but “it’s the quality of your close relationships that matters.”

So the most detailed, most comprehensive study ever undertaken into adult development found that the happiest people are those who have good, strong relationships.

I know a lot of you will read this, nod your head in agreement, maybe even take a few moments to let it sink in.

But then you’ll quickly move on with your lives.

Why?

Because most of us take our relationships for granted.
We believe that good relationships don’t need work- they should simply function without much effort.

We don't think too much about having to nurture and harness our relationships.

It’s funny isn’t it- we put so much time and effort into things that we believe might one day make us happy, like our careers, or making more money, and yet working on our relationships, the very thing that will make us happy right now, and will also secure our long term happiness, is rarely ever considered.

But like anything worthwhile in life, to get the most from our relationships, we need to put in the time and effort.

And I know, as a busy working parent, time is the most precious and scarce commodity.

So let me show you how you can improve your relationships without putting too much strain on your busy life.

𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗼 𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗿𝗼𝘃𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗿𝗲𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽𝘀

Put 20 minutes aside where you won’t be interrupted.

Use the first 10 minutes to reflect on this very morbid but hugely effective question: if you were to die tomorrow, what would you regret about your relationship with the people closest to you?

Make a list, write down everything that comes into your mind.
After 10 minutes, ask yourself these 2 questions:

- How do you currently spend time with the people closest to you every day and every week?

- How can you improve the time you spend with them?

Again, spend 10 minutes making a list of everything that comes to mind.

Let me show you how the above exercise affected me and what I did to improve my relationships.

I realised that while I spent a lot of time with my wife and 2 girls, very little of this was actually quality time.

The mornings were always a rush, a mostly stressful blur of activity to get everyone out the door by 8.

Dinner was a pretty muted affair. More often than not my wife and I would scroll through our phones while the girls read books or comics.

TV time was always a separate affair in that the children watched their programs on their own. I might sit down every now and then to watch a Teen Titans, but that was about it.

My wife and I have always had a great, strong relationship but as our lives got busier, we didn’t have as much time to ourselves. What passed for quality time was slumping in front of the TV on a Friday and Saturday night, gorging ourselves on Walkers Sensations and watching TV.

When I looked at how I spent my time, I realised that there were so many opportunities where I could improve my relationship with my wife and children.

So I introduced a few small happy goals.

I call them small happy happy goals because they are so easy to introduce into my life and because they make me and my family happier.

Here is what I introduced into my weekly schedule:

- No phones or books at the table- we now talk to each other at breakfast and dinner.

- Instead of driving the kids to school, I now walk them to school (we get to have great chats and fun on these walks).

- On the weekends, we sit down as a family and watch a TV program that we all like (I’ll record series like Lego Masters, The Great British Bakeoff, Junior Bakeoff, The Great Pottery Throwdown etc). TV is not the demon a lot of people make it out to be- we get so much fun and joy from these shared moments.

- Every weekend I plan something for me and my 2 daughters to do together for a couple of hours. This varies- it could be swimming, or going up to the shopping centre and grabbing a coffee, or taking them to the park on their scooters.

- My wife and I plan 2 date nights every month.

So that’s it- those 5 small tasks are the small happy goals that help me build better relationships with my wife and children.

Now I’m not encouraging you to copy my small happy goals- everyone is different and what works for our family mightn’t work for you.

It’s also worth noting that there was a fair bit of trial and error. You won’t get it right on the first go, so you’ll need to revise and tweak as you go on.

Also, the goals evolve and change over time.

None of these small happy goals put a strain on my schedule and the payback in terms of my overall happiness levels is immeasurable.

You see when you invest in your relationships, you’re investing in your happiness and in the happiness of those closest to you.
The payback is immediate and continues throughout your life.

So do that quick 20 minutes exercise. Schedule those small happy goals, and I guarantee you, it will be the best investment you will ever make.

𝗚𝗲𝘁 𝗟𝗶𝘁𝗲 𝗠𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗳𝗿𝗲𝗲: 𝗚𝗲𝘁 𝗟𝗶𝘁𝗲 𝗠𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗳𝗿𝗲𝗲

Creating and adding small happy goals is one important element of Lite Mind, a breakthrough technique I developed to help busy people develop happier and more fulfilled lives.

Another vital element to develop long term happiness is to learn how to appreciate the good in your everyday life- this can be achieved by practicing short exercises just a few times a week.

To find out more and to get access to free Lite Mind exercises, Simply click on this link- https://lite-mind.com/pages/free-lite-mind-exercise-1, and I promise within a week, you will be happier.

31/08/2021

𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗥𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗶𝗼𝘂𝘀 𝗣𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝗔𝗿𝗲 𝗛𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗶𝗲𝗿 (𝗵𝗶𝗻𝘁: 𝗶𝘁'𝘀 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗯𝗲𝗰𝗮𝘂𝘀𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗚𝗼𝗱)

I have never been religious.

Yes, I went to mass with my parents when I was a young boy.

In primary school I served as an altar boy and made my first communion and confirmation.

But since then, other than attending weddings and funerals, my relationship with religion is non-existent.

I’m not a believer, but that hasn’t stopped me from sometimes envying people with faith.

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Why the envy? They simply seem to be happier.

Now I’m not talking about the bitter, intolerant, judgemental, closed-minded, type of religious person.

I’m talking about good people with faith who try to lead a good life.

For most of my life I thought that it was their faith alone that made them happy.

And while undoubtedly belief in a higher being plays a role, over the years, as I researched happiness, I came to understand the importance and power of prayer.

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Through prayer, they thank their God for the food on their table, for the people in their lives, for their job, their house, their health, the vastness and beauty of the world they live in.

Prayer is used to set intentions, express compassion, empathy and other good feelings.

So when I mention prayer, I’m not talking about the type of praying I did when I was younger- where I rattled off the same things everyday without even thinking about what I was saying.

The praying I’m talking about is when the person connects with the words, the thoughts and the feelings that are being expressed.

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It’s this heartfelt appreciation and recognition of all the good you have in your life, combined with the positive emotions and intentions expressed in prayer that contributes significantly to how happy a person feels.

Anecdotally, we know that thinking about the good you have in your life, feeling and expressing gratitude, joy, love, awe etc has a positive impact on your happiness.

And now we have science-backed research to prove how this happens.

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Breakthroughs in the field of neuroscience over the last 20 years shows there is a direct link between taking in the good and happiness.

As the fantastic neuroscientist Risk Hanson shows in his book “Hardwiring Happiness”, by thinking about the good in our lives or even creating good thoughts, and holding onto these good thoughts, absorbing them for a 10 or 20 seconds, and doing this regularly, brain scans show that these good thoughts get converted into neural structure.

This is called experience-dependent neuroplasticity.

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In short, the brain can be shaped by whatever we decide to rest the mind upon. So if you keep resting your mind upon negative thoughts and worries, your brain becomes more susceptible to anxiety, depression, anger and a host of other negative feelings.

On the flip side, if you practice resting your mind on good things, like appreciating nature, appreciating the sounds and silence that surround you, tuning into your compassion, empathy, appreciating the people around you, setting intentions- then your brain will be shaped by these positive emotions.

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Now of course one of the problems with prayer is that it can lack variety and as a result you end up thanking God for the same things every day.

This leads to boredom and as a result it significantly reduces the impact of the prayer.

I remember as a child saying the same prayer every day- it was monotonous, repetitive and had zero impact on me.

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So for prayer to be truly effective, it needs to be heartfelt, and to bring your heartfelt feelings into any exercise on a regular basis, there needs to be plenty of variety.

I spent years researching happiness, practicing all of the proven happiness techniques like compassion, self compassion, empathy, gratitude journaling, setting intrinsic goals and many more.

One of my main aims was to develop a prayer-like exercise that, when practiced just a few times every week, trains your brain to naturally tune into the good in your everyday life.

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The end result is Lite Mind, a breakthrough technique that helps busy people develop a happier and more fulfilled life.

The short, prayer-like exercises form one of the central elements of Lite Mind.

These exercises get you to tune into the good in your everyday life, so that after just a week or 2 of practicing Lite Mind, you become naturally more appreciative and this has a significant impact on your everyday happiness.

There is also a huge amount of variety and this means that every exercise will be fresh, making it much easier for you to feel heartfelt appreciation, gratitude, love or whatever feelings you get from each exercise.

Unlike prayer, I don’t recommend that you do these exercises every single day- that just turns it into a chore. I space out the exercises in a way that leaves you wanting to do them just a few times each week.

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Want to see how these exercises work?

I’m giving you free access to 12 Lite Mind exercises- you don’t have to give me your email address, there are no strings attached.

𝗚𝗲𝘁 𝗟𝗶𝘁𝗲 𝗠𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗳𝗿𝗲𝗲: Simply click on this link: https://lite-mind.com/pages/free-lite-mind-exercise-1 and I promise within a week, you will be happier.

23/08/2021

𝗢𝗹𝘆𝗺𝗽𝗶𝗰 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗺𝗽𝗶𝗼𝗻, 𝗣𝗮𝘂𝗹 𝗢 𝗗𝗼𝗻𝗼𝘃𝗮𝗻, 𝗻𝗮𝗶𝗹𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗲 𝗵𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗶𝘀

Most of us will know Paul O Donovan for his gold medal rowing achievements as well as his honest and oftentimes very funny interviews.

But behind the easygoing manner is a very finely tuned mind, with a great understanding of what’s important in life.

In an interview a week before he won gold at the Tokyo Olympics, in 3 short paragraphs, O Donovan absolutely nails what happiness is all about.

“I was doing a bit of thinking there earlier in the year when I had a bit of time,” he says. “It was like from my experience of winning World Championships and even the last Olympics silver medal, there’s almost a ceiling on how happy you can be for winning medals.

“If I really didn’t enjoy rowing and found it hard and miserable every day, knowing from the experience I’ve had of winning other medals I don’t think it would be worth it day to day. Really, if you’re not enjoying the rest of the stuff, I don’t think it’s worthwhile to go chasing Olympic gold medals.”

“It’s always nice to win medals,” he says. “But I just think... D’you know, I’m not rowing to get a big collection of medals. I’m just rowing because I enjoy it.”

Ok, so this isn’t rocket science. What O Donovan is saying here is something most of us know to be true: happiness isn’t a destination, it’s a journey and to be truly happy, you need to enjoy the journey.

When you are doing something you enjoy, something that challenges you and brings out the very best in you, something that is intrinsic to you, then you have purpose.

Having purpose is what’s important here and it gives Paul O Donovan a huge amount of happiness. The end goal of winning medals is simply the big cherry on the top.

The happiness we get by adding purpose to our lives not only has a positive impact on our well-being, it also significantly improves our health.

Research published in 2016 from 10 studies shows that having purpose is associated with reduced risk of mortality and cardiovascular events, such as heart attacks or stroke.(ref: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26630073).

So why aren’t more of us adding purpose to our lives?

Why do so many of us find ourselves in our mid thirties and forties feeling that life is bypassing us?

Why do we believe it’s too late or we’re too busy to add purpose to our lives?

The reason why many of us are reluctant or fearful to add purpose is because of misconceptions as to what purpose is and how it can be achieved.

For example, we believe that purpose is a rare thing, hidden away like an endangered orchid, and only a very small number of people manage to find it.

And we also mistakenly believe that purpose is just one huge thing, like building a big business, or winning an Olympic gold medal or becoming famous for something specific.

We look at people in the public eye, be they entertainers, sports stars or famous entrepreneurs and we believe they are the lucky few who have found their one true purpose.

This, of course, is nonsense.

Purpose can be found in whatever challenges you, makes you feel better about yourself and gives your life value.

So this could be anything from bringing up great children, to growing vegetables in an allotment.

Purpose can be found in starting a new hobby, or launching a side hustle.

It doesn’t have to be something huge.

Furthermore, you absolutely can, and should, have more than 1 purpose.

So how can you find and add purpose to your life?

There are a few techniques that I teach in my course, but perhaps one of the quickest and easiest methods is what I call “The eighty-year-old self” exercise.

In this exercise I ask you to imagine your 80-year-old self looking back on your life.

Based on your life up to now, what regrets would your 80-year-old self have?

When I first did this exercise many years ago, I had the following regrets:
- I wish I had spent more time with my kids when they were growing up
- I wish I had appreciated my wife more
- I wish I had committed more time to my wellness project
- I wish I had gotten to know my neighbours a bit better
- I wish I had spent more time with my mother as she got older
- I wish I had done more with my passion for hill-walking

This is such a powerful and sobering exercise.

Each of these regrets can and should be flipped around and turned into purpose.

So that’s what I did.

I developed what I now call small happy goals and big happy goals to help me address each of these regrets.

Each goal gives my life purpose, they challenge me, they make me feel better about myself, they add value to my life, they give me a natural sense of optimism, and ultimately, they make me happier.

I recommend that you have 1 big happy goal and then a few small happy goals.

The goals change, evolve and can be enhanced with time.

For example, on foot of the 80-year-old self exercise, when I first planned my goals, my 1 big happy goal was to commit 100% to a wellness project I was working on.

The goal has now evolved into a big happy goal to make 1 million people happier.

And once this goal is achieved, who knows what my next big happy goal will be? It may be something completely different, like making a documentary or travelling the world.

I haven’t given any thought to it yet as I still get so much joy out of my current big happy goal.

My small happy goals are centred around building better relationships with the people who are closest to me as well as doing things that I enjoy like reading and hill walking.

I call them small happy goals because they are smaller tasks and as such, they are easier to add to my life.

However, the time and effort that I put into these goals, combined with the amount of happiness and value they add to my life, makes them every bit, if not more important than my 1 big happy goal.

And I know, some of you might be thinking “I’ll never find the time to do any of this, my life is just too busy.”

First of all, memorise this mantra: You’ll never find time, you have to schedule it.

And secondly, how can it ever be too late to work on building better relationships with the people who mean the most to you?

How can it ever be too late to do things that challenge you, that are intrinsic to you, that add purpose to your life and ultimately make you feel alive and much, much happier?

Because when it comes down to it, we all just want to be happier, or in the wise words of Paul O Donovan: “Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence”- (only joking, it was Aristotle who wrote that).

𝗚𝗲𝘁 𝗟𝗶𝘁𝗲 𝗠𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗳𝗿𝗲𝗲: Adding purpose is one important element of Lite Mind, a breakthrough technique I created to help busy people develop happier and more fulfilled lives.

Another vital element to develop long term happiness is to train your brain to tune into and naturally appreciate the good in your everyday life- this can be achieved by practicing short exercises just a few times a week.

To find out more and to get access to a free Lite Mind exercise, click on the link below and I promise within a week, you will be happier.

https://lite-mind.com/pages/free-lite-mind-exercise-1

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https://www.lite-mind.com/

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