“Chill out, dude!” Is there any more annoying phrase to hear than this?

One can argue that the interjection to Relaaaaxx! or (one my personal favorites) Take a chill pill! take the honors, but the point is that whenever this sort of advice is offered in our direction, we usually reject it.

Quickly. Vehemently. Occasionaly, violently.

The reason for this is simple… We usually hear this advice when we feel far from relaxed. The advice feels annoying because the wide gap between where we are (feeling frustrated, pissed off, fearful) and where we know we belong (feeling free, full of ease, connected).

In a heated moment, we’re just too far away from feeling cool to transform how we feel in the snap of a finger. Jumping from feeling frustrated all the way to feeling peaceful would be like trying to climb a ladder by going from the first rung to the tenth. It’s just too far of a stretch.

If you want to live a very cool life, one of the simplest, most powerful things you can do is make sure you don’t get too low on the ladder in the first place.

You know what reminded me of this today? The hot summer weather. A few years back we had central air conditioning put in. Fantastic investment for this heat-sensitive Irishman. The installer advised me to look at the weather in the morning. If it was going to be hot, hit the AC early rather than waiting until the temperature got too hot. His point (and my larger point) is that it’s much easier to keep something that’s cool cool than it is to cool something hot. With me?

So how do you ensure that you don’t get too far out of alignment? How do you stay cool?

Practice.

Or more specifically, you make the decision to invest a few minutes of your day aligning your thoughts. Think “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” here. A little focus and effort on the front end pays huge dividends later in that the best approach to dealing with problems is to avoid them altogether.

To do this, get in the habit of starting your day in chill mode. Specifically, this means to begin your morning consciously focusing on things that please you. What those things are do not matter. Could be your coffee, or the sunrise, or basking in the quiet. Just take 10 minutes to activate the feeling of appreciation by noticing what you like. (Your cell phone, Facebook account, and e-mails can wait).

But humans can be funny creatures when it comes to doing things the easy way. Because most people expect and accept aspects of their lives to be problematic, they fail to develop the simple habit of consciously choosing the thoughts that result in an easy, attractive life, chilled-out life.

The result is that they create lots of problems and mini-dramas and spend their time and energy trying to resolve things that need not exist in their lives in the first place. Once you’re in problem solving mode it’s not easy to get back to chill mode. Again, too far apart on the ladder.

My suggestion?Because the only way to feel great is to feel great, get in the habit of connecting to great-feeling thoughts. In fact, make how you feel more of a priority than what you do.

It’s an abnormal way to live, yes. But all extraordinary lives are abnormal by definition. Practice thinking very cool thoughts and you’ll rarely leave the chill zone (and when you do, you’ll be able to get back in more easily).

And to my way of thinking, “chilled-out” is how life is meant to be lived…

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(A head’s up for blog readers… My new creation is ready to go…)

Want to really learn how to chill out and live a very cool life? Want personal coaching from Drew at a super-low price and lots more stuff so cool you’ll think you’re in Alaska in January?

Join Club VCL, The Very Cool Life Coaching Club. See the video and what it’s all about here.