Long ago there lived an ant who had grown weary of ant life. Nothing about it pleased her. The rules felt rigid and endless. She resented the long lines, the waiting, and doing the same task as everyone else on command. She envied the ladybirds and beetles, who seemed to roam wherever they liked without a care.

Up on the wind

She longed to escape and tried every way she could think of. Then one blustery day a broad leaf came tumbling by. She clung to it, and the wind carried the two of them up and up. Soon the creatures below shrank to nothing, too small to see. And then something astonishing rose into view above the grass and leaves: her own colony’s great mound, standing tall for all to see.

What she saw from above

Nowhere could she spot a home made by beetles or a nest built by ladybirds. No other creature had raised anything at all. Only the ants had. In that moment she understood that the very rules she disliked, the readiness of each ant to put the colony before itself, the discipline and the shared labour, were what had made something so much grander than anything the others could manage. For the first time she was glad, even proud, to be an ant.

Working together

Real teamwork means many people pulling towards one shared aim. Meeting is where it starts; sticking together is how it grows; pulling together is how it wins. That shared effort is what lets ordinary people reach remarkable results. It rests on trust. A team succeeds or fails as a whole, and a group full of brilliant individuals who will not cooperate achieves very little. So if you hope to accomplish more, keep yourself organised and in step with others.

The moral: order and shared rules make great things possible.

Living more gently on the planet does not require a dramatic change, such as moving into a treehouse or gathering wild herbs for dinner. A few small adjustments to daily life can cut the amount of rubbish you produce by a surprising amount.

Get your bills online

Most companies now let you receive bills by email or through an online account. Choosing that option removes a great deal of unwanted post and paper, much of which you probably throw away without even opening.

Compost your scraps

If you enjoy gardening, keep a small bin on the kitchen counter where you can drop food scraps, including fruit and vegetable peel, eggshells and used coffee grounds. Composting turns leftover food and other natural waste into a dark, rich material that feeds the soil and helps plants grow.

Buy loose and in bulk

Shopping from bulk bins cuts down on wrappers, saves money and lets you sample unfamiliar foods a little at a time. Bulk stores usually have rows of bins with scoops, so you can take exactly as much as you want.

Carry your own bags and jars

A cloth bag is the simplest green habit of all. Avoid plastic bags altogether by keeping a reusable bag, many of which fold up small, in your handbag or vehicle. If you are going bulk shopping, take jars with lids for anything liquid.

We all forget things to some degree. Some of us lose track of our keys, some forget why we went to the shops, and some even forget people’s names. Unless the cause is simply a late night or exam stress, it is worth working out why your memory is slipping and tackling it sensibly. You do not need costly remedies to remember better. These everyday habits help.

Keep learning something new

Memory works a lot like a car: if you do not use it, it lets you down. To strengthen your memory and keep your mind focused, learn something new as often as you can. There is no secret formula for a long life, but people who live well into old age often share one habit: they keep using their minds. Learn a new dance, a new language or a new game, anything that appeals to you. It will help your memory, teach you new skills and bring new friends along the way. Being with other people matters a great deal for a healthy mind too.

Look after your fitness

Health experts widely agree that exercise such as swimming, running and other activities that raise your heart rate helps protect memory over the long term. To keep your memory strong and your mind clear as you grow older, exercise your body as well as your mind. Activities that get your heart pumping are a good choice, because they increase the flow of blood to the brain.

Practise quiet focus and better breathing

Quiet sitting practice is often oversold as a cure for everything, but it does bring real benefits. It helps you relax and concentrate, which is good both for your brain and for your general health. Most such practices involve slow, deep breaths, which also help memory and calm the nerves. Do it for a couple of minutes a day and you may find yourself sitting straighter, feeling more positive and more energetic. Best of all, it costs nothing.

Concentrating on one thing alone can look like the sensible way to become an expert. In practice, it can actually harm the way we learn.

The usual picture of an expert

How would you describe an expert? We tend to picture someone who focuses intensely on one area and pours most of their time into learning more and more about it. Endless practice, time and effort are usually seen as the path to real skill and knowledge in a single field. But is that really the whole story?

The cost of too narrow a focus

When we focus too long and too hard on one area, we stop ourselves from opening up to different ideas, viewpoints and related subjects. In a focused learning mode, the brain pours all its energy and attention into one subject. We end up with a fixed framework and mindset for tackling problems, which narrows our thinking and our perspective. The kind of stimulation that helps us think in new and different ways gets blocked. So while practice does help, how you practise is the key to becoming truly skilled.

Look for connections

The secret of real expertise is to find links between your own field and other areas, and to apply ideas from one to the other. That way you can create new solutions while deepening your expertise.

Steve Jobs did not confine himself to computer science. He kept stretching beyond it, looking for fresh and original ideas that added value to what he already knew. He realised that a computer did not have to be merely a tool; it could also be stylish and beautifully designed, something people would be proud to use every day. Joining design and engineering in this way produced products that kept his company ahead of its rivals.

Depth and breadth together

Becoming an expert and focusing on your core skills is essential for basic success. But it is the ideas you keep bringing in from elsewhere that carry your learning forward.

After working so hard to reach where you are, you might expect some room to breathe. But success comes with its own price, in every shape and size. The further you go, the more responsibility you take on, and that can push both mind and body off balance. At such times, staying calm matters. Here are a few ways people who handle pressure well keep steady.

See obstacles as openings

A negative attitude towards the challenges in front of you is a quick way to feel swamped. Treat obstacles as chances to learn, and treat hard tasks as chances to show what you are made of.

Stop guessing

There are many ways for things to go badly, and just as many for them to go well. Leave no room for assumptions. Once you stop guessing, you will feel surer about the things that keep you calm.

Interrupt a wandering mind

Every so often, stop your thoughts from drifting. Keep something positive ready in your mind, so you can switch your attention to it whenever your thinking starts turning dark.

Do not tie your feelings to the result

When you are under stress, stay a little detached from strong feelings about success or failure. Too much emotion riding on the outcome only adds to the strain.

Go easy on the coffee

Cut back on caffeine as much as you can. Needing to stay awake at odd hours is no reason to load up on it. When your plate is already full, the last thing you need is more caffeine, which only stirs up the parts of the brain that make you feel overwhelmed in the first place. Choose water instead.

The will to win, the drive to succeed and the urge to reach your full potential are what open the door to your best self. Calm keeps that door open.

If we could get a grip on the worry that grabs our minds so often, so constantly and so often without our noticing, we would greatly improve our chances of a longer, happier and more successful life.

Why worry feels like home

Whatever you have been doing for years, perhaps decades, feels familiar and comfortable, even when it is something as harmful as worrying. Taking a leap into the unknown and making a change that might turn out well can feel more frightening and more uncomfortable than staying with what you know, even if what you know is worse for you in the long run.

Deciding to let it go

At some point you have to make up your mind to let go of that old, familiar part of yourself. You have to fill the space that worrying used to take up with new ways of thinking. That may feel strange at first, because it is not as familiar as your old thoughts. It can be both scary and exciting. You are no longer just someone who sees themselves as a worrier and uses a few tricks to worry less. You are making a deep change to who you are and how you see yourself. You are letting go of something that has been a big part of you and leaving it by the side of the road.

What worry really does

Worry wastes time and drains our energy. We believe all our worrying will somehow help. We believe that if we worry enough, we might stop bad things from happening. The truth is that worrying about everything, whether it happens or not, does not protect us at all.

Choose gratitude instead

So be thankful for the things you do have, and do not dwell on circumstances you cannot control. Keep your thoughts on the good things.

Sometimes people reach a point where they simply want to begin again, yet they are afraid to try. It is never too late.

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you know things are just not working? Whether in your relationships or in your work, you may feel stuck and unhappy with how things are. The good news is that as the world keeps changing so quickly, there are more chances than ever to do things that once seemed impossible after a certain age or a certain stage of life.

Age is a state of mind

Age is largely an idea we have agreed on together, and it should not decide or limit what you are capable of or what you aim for. But there is more to it than that. A fresh start goes beyond outside factors such as time and age. It is about you: your willingness to accept challenges and your determination to break free from your present situation.

What limitations really are

To break free from our limits, we need to step back and see clearly what limits actually are. On the surface, they are things that stop you from doing something. Look deeper and you find they are what keeps you trapped in a loop. They keep you facing the same problems, making the same choices and taking the same actions again and again. Your limits shape the quality of your life. So if you want a better life, you have to break out of the limits that keep you going round the same circle day after day, month after month and year after year.

It starts with how you see things

It may seem that your limits are beyond your control, or simply things that happen to you. But the reality you live in comes from the way you see it. Learning to steer how you look at things is the key to breaking free and starting over. In that sense, every limit begins in the mind. You can learn to take charge of your limits, and with them, your dreams.

There will be times when life turns truly awful. One thing follows another until it feels as though bad luck or misfortune has swallowed you whole. How do you climb back towards a good life when that happens? A few ideas follow.

Look up

Put your attention on what is within your power today. What matters is accepting life as it really is, full of ups and downs, joys and sorrows. Fight that truth and you turn sour, resenting life for its hardness.

Gather a circle of support

The road back to warmth and love is far shorter when caring people walk it with you. However often you promise yourself not to dwell on the bad things, there will be moments when you do. That is when your circle matters most.

Reconnect with nature and with yourself

Quiet reflection, singing, drumming, dancing, gentle stretching or slow movement in the open air: all of these can help you come back in touch with your own mind.

Get going

When you have a rough sense of what you want, chase it. Things may not change overnight, but they will start to move. As soon as you put your energy into things you care about and into your aims, your mood starts to lift.

Do you feel stuck, as though life is not moving forward and you are towing an anchor everywhere you go? If so, read on.

Where the anchor comes from

We probably learned much of how we behave from the people who raised us. Parents and the main adults around us when we were young shape how we understand close relationships and how they grow. Did they show you what a healthy relationship looks like, or were things at home marked by unhealthy patterns? Were you picked on by brothers, sisters or classmates? Were your parents critical or demanding, so that you always felt you fell short of pleasing them or meeting their hopes for you?

How it weighs us down

Pain and fear build up over the years and drag on us like an anchor that we haul from one relationship to the next. More than just old baggage, it can get in the way of healthy relationships. If we keep lugging this awkward weight through life, we may miss many chances to be happy. Some people are pulled down so far that they give up on ever finding love or happiness with another person and come to believe they are meant to be alone. That is truly sad, because everyone deserves happiness, and everyone who longs for a loving partner deserves to find one. A close relationship built on loving connection is a big part of feeling that life brings us joy and satisfaction.

Treat yourself the way you want to be treated

If you want to allow yourself happiness, love and the respect of others, you have to treat yourself that way first. To care for yourself and grow your sense of self-worth, you first need to wipe the old recordings and tape over the negative messages with kinder words to yourself. That shift is the key to getting past the past and building a future with healthier patterns of relating, free of self-sabotaging habits.

Let go and cut the rope

This usually involves laying down old anger, dropping long-held grudges and even learning to forgive yourself. Releasing, forgiving and letting go are important steps towards a healthy, loving and connected relationship. There comes a time when the past has to stay in the past. When you reach that point, make a conscious decision to cut the anchor loose and stop dragging it behind you. Once you are free of what has been holding you back, you may be amazed at how light you feel, light enough perhaps to build a new, healthy and loving bond with someone. The pull towards self-defeating behaviour may never disappear completely, but there is always something you can do to challenge yourself and give better experiences a chance.

A simple way to weaken the pull of self-sabotage is to seek out the beauty hidden inside difficult circumstances.

A fine wax candle lay stored in a box with many others just like it. It grumbled that it had been sentenced to a useless life of idleness. “What good is a candle that never burns?” it asked. “Is that not the very thing I was made for?”

A grand ornamental candle beside it offered comfort. “Be patient. Your moment is coming.”

At last, the flame

In time, the candle was lifted from the box, set in a handsome holder and lit. Now it was content. Its calm glow filled every shadowy nook and shone out through the glass, visible from a long way off.

Then, the fear

After a while the candle noticed that it was getting shorter, even though its flame burned as brightly as ever. “What is happening to me?” it cried when it realised. “With every moment I grow smaller. Trees do not have this trouble; they only grow bigger. Why should my reward for giving light be to lose my very self?”

The answer

Then the ornamental candle answered. “What is there to fear? Can you not see that you have been turned into light? Even people seldom manage that. The light that leaves this room becomes brightness somewhere else. All of us must burn, whether in a grand hall or a humble hut, and each of us carries the same message: that the time of darkness will one day come to an end.”

What we give of ourselves is not lost. It goes out into the world and lights someone else’s way.