“So if we love someone, we should train in being able to listen. By listening with calm and understanding, we can ease the suffering of another person.” - Thich Nhat Hanh

It’s Christmastime and it’s the season of giving … what are you giving your loved ones this year?

The holidays often mean giving a lot of gifts, sometimes expensive, but often we lose sight of what’s most important.

What gifts do your loved ones really want, whether they’re your children, your significant other, your parents, your friends, or other family members? Is it an expensive electronic item, or some other material or tangible item? Perhaps.

But the gifts I list below are more important. Sure, they might not be as fun to open on Christmas morning (or whatever other holiday you might celebrate), but in the long run, they’ll value these gifts more.

1. Your Presence. This means making it a priority to spend time with them — if they are truly important, you can make the time. You might have to change things in your life to make the time, but it’s worth it.

Beyond just making the time, though, you have to actually be present when you spend time with loved ones. That means learning to stay in the moment, rather than having your mind on other things, checking your iPhone or Blackberry every two minutes, or trying to take care of other tasks and chores while spending time with them. Instead, drop everything else and focus on being there with your loved ones — really listen, really have fun, really be present.

2. Your Love. This is perhaps an obvious one on the list, but it’s too important to gloss over. It’s imperative that you tell your loved ones that … well, that you love them. Regularly. But just as important is that you actually show them you love them, in your actions every day, throughout the day. Hugs, intimacy, smiles, doing kind things for them, considering their needs and feelings … just little things that mean a lot.

3. Your Compassion. How is this different than giving the gift of your love? Well, it’s possible to love someone and not show compassion. For example, we parents often discipline our children and love them at the same time … but often compassion is even more important than discipline.

Compassion is finding empathy with your loved one … trying to see things from their eyes, trying to understand what they’re going through … and then doing your best to be kind and to end their suffering and to make them happier. Read more.

4. A Voice. We can give so much just by paying attention to a loved one, and really listening, and showing that we’re interested in what they have to say, and showing that what they say is important and respected. Too often our children or spouse might talk to us but are only met with a disinterested nod or other small acknowledgment, or we’ll make light or fun of what they say, as if it’s not important. But giving a person a voice, and showing that their words matter, will have a long-lasting different in their lives.

5. A Healthy Lifestyle. When you spend time with your loved one, try to do so while enjoying a healthy and fun activity, such as going on a hike, playing a sport, tossing around a Frisbee, going for a walk or jog, doing some yardwork, and so on. When you get together to eat, try to eat healthy foods. Make the habits of good health a part of your lifestyle, and encourage your loved ones to do the same — it could save their lives.

6. Your Belief in Them. Simply believing in another person, and showing that in your words and in your deeds, can make a huge difference. Studies of people who grew up in dysfunctional homes but who grew up to be happy and successful show that the one thing they had in common was a significant adult who believed in them. Do this for your child, and for the adult loved ones in your life as well. Support their dreams and passions and hobbies. Participate with them. Be nothing but encouraging. Be their greatest cheerleader. Whether they actually accomplish these dreams or not, your belief is of unlimited importance to them.

“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive.” - the Dalai Lama

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AUDIO PODCAST

In the spirit of giving, I’d like to share the third audio tips podcast that I’ve done for ThePowerofLess.com:

The Keys to Setting and Achieving Goals

This podcast can be played on your computer, iPod or other media device. The podcast talks about:

• How taking on too many goals can lead to a cycle of failure and guilt.
• Simplify: Focus on one goal at a time.
• Why you should start small.
• Focus on that One Goal to completion.
• Breaking a goal into smaller goals.

Feel free to share it on your blog, via email, on forums, in social media, or however you like!

Three other audio podcast tips have been or will be released this week related to The Power of Less:

1. Office Zen: How to Focus on One Task at a Time. (released)
2. Taming Email: Tips on Finding Inbox Zen. (released)
3. Effective weight loss strategies. (soon to come!)

Article by Zen Habits contributor Jonathan Mead.

While I’ve never been a big fan of fear mongering, it’s clear that the US economy is in a little more than a slump. There are many ways we can live more frugally, and that includes spending less on groceries and being more conscious of the things we buy.

I’m not recommending that we buy less quality foods for the sake of cutting costs. I won’t recommend buying conventional over organic in order to save money. I don’t think you should have to sacrifice quality in order to have less of an impact on your wallet. There are, however, some great frugal tips that I’ve learned to help save money at the market.

1. Don’t buy plastic wrap, tin foil, sandwich bags, etc. For everything that you could think of needing  - a sandwich baggy, tin foil, or other disposable nonsense - there is a non-disposable alternative. Use tupperware instead.
2. Buy in bulk. Certain things like rice, beans and grains are much cheaper when purchased in bulk.
3. Don’t buy in bulk. Sometimes when you buy in bulk, you’ll have a tendency to eat things faster. If you have a 400 count box of twinkies, you’ll likely eat them much quicker than one with only 4. Try to buy things in bulk that you know won’t tempt you to binge on.
4. Don’t buy pre-made. If you cook something often, you’ll save a lot more buying the ingredients and cooking yourself, than buying it frozen.
5. Shop at farmer’s markets. Often local farmers can match or beat supermarket prices because they don’t have to pay overhead and transportation costs. Check this site out to do a search for a farmers market in your area.
6. Grow your own. I know I’m not the only one who doesn’t have the time or space (I live in an apartment) to grow much of my own food. Little things like herbs or indoor tomatoes, however, can be easily grown in your kitchen without much hassle. Basil, oregano, cherry tomatoes, alfalfa sprouts and mint are easily grown in your kitchen window.
7. Eat leftovers, instead of eating out. The convenience of eating out is often hard to resist. One way to avoid this temptation is preparing meals that can be eaten more than one day. Try making casseroles or lasagna that will last 2 or 3 days.
8. Eat out intelligently. Take advantage of restaurants that have 2 for 1 buffet, or lunch specials. Or make eating out a ritual on a certain day of the week. My wife and I only eat out on Fridays. Having a set day that we only eat out
9. Use coupons. It never hurts to do a little old fashioned coupon clipping. Now, however, you don’t have to clip them, you can print them.
10. Don’t shop hungry. If you don’t follow any of these tips, follow this one. Every time that I have spent way more than I expected at the grocery store, it was because I went there hungry. When you shop hungry, everything looks good and you want to buy everything. After you get home and eat, you’ll probably find yourself wondering what you’re going to do with all of that food. And much of it inevitably spoils and goes bad. If you do nothing else, don’t shop hungry.

Do you have any tips for saving money on food? Share with us in the comments.

This article was written by Zen Habits contributor Jonathan Mead of the Illuminated Mind blog. For more ways to improve your life, grab a subscription to Illuminated MInd.

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The New York Times ran a story today that says the next consumer crisis is credit cards — a sobering fact in a nation that has racked up massive amounts of credit card debt.

Unfortunately, when times get hard, many people turn to credit cards to help them make ends meet … and only dig themselves into a deeper hole.

I’ve been through this myself, buying things on credit when I had no other way to pay for them. I’m not talking about plasma TVs, but about necessities like medical bills. As a result, I dug myself deep into debt, and one of the biggest decisions of my life was to get rid of credit cards and begin eliminating my debt.

At the beginning of this year, I finally got completely out of debt, and I celebrated. But it wasn’t easy. It took some hard decisions, some sacrifices, and a commitment to change my spending habits.

I highly recommend that people get out of debt and stay out of debt, especially as the economy hits difficult times. It’s not a good position to be in if you lose your job while burdened with lots of debt. Better: become debt-free, with a good emergency fund and a small budget. That’s recession-proof personal finances.

Here’s how to get there in six steps:

1. Curtail spending. The first step is to stop the bleeding. If you’re trying to get out of a hole, you’ve got to stop digging first. So make the decision right now to not use your credit card except in emergencies. Cut back on your spending in any way you can, at least for now as you try to get out of debt. Consider tracking your spending for a week or two at least, writing down every purchase, so that you can see where your money is going. Some suggestions for cutting back: eating out, going out, magazines, expensive coffees or other drinks and snacks, new gadgets, non-essential clothing purchases, non-essential furniture or home purchases, to name a few. Now, I’m not suggesting that you never eat out or go out to have fun — but I am suggesting that you cut back on these types of spending. Find other ways to have fun that don’t cost as much.

2. Save an emergency fund. With the money you save from Step 1, begin saving an emergency fund as quickly as possible. Let’s say you identify $200 per paycheck that you can save from cutting back on specific spending items (as an example — your amount will vary). Now put that $200 into a savings fund each paycheck, and within 5 paychecks you’ll have a $1,000 emergency fund saved up. This is extremely important, as there will always be unexpected emergencies that come up (you have to go to the hospital, you car breaks down, you home floods, etc.) and many people will use credit cards to pay for these expenses when they don’t have an emergency fund. If you have an emergency fund, you can avoid going deeper into the hole when these expenses inevitably come up.

3. Make debt elimination a priority. Once you have a small emergency fund saved up ($1,000 is best to start with, but you can get by with as little as a $500 fund), begin channeling your extra money toward debt repayment. Make this a top priority, or you won’t get to it. That means make it your first payment each payday: set up an automatic payment at your bank where you automatically pay an extra amount to your highest-interest debt. Pay the minimum on your other debts for now, and once you pay off the highest-interest debt, put all your extra money to your next highest-interest debt … and so on, until all debts are paid off. An alternative is to pay your smallest debt first, then focus on the next biggest debt, and so on.

4. Scale back your lifestyle. While Step 1 asked you to find ways to cut back on spending immediately, there are longer-term changes you can make that will have a big impact on your spending. For example, you could trade in your large car or SUV for a smaller, less-expensive car that gets better gas mileage. You can eventually move to a smaller home and get rid of a lot of the clutter in your house that requires a lot of space. You can work at cooking at home more instead of eating out, brown-bagging it to work instead of having expensive lunches, making your clothes last longer instead of buying new clothes all the time, and deciding you don’t really need the latest computer, TV, video game system, or smart phone — the ones you have work well enough already. These changes may take time, but a commitment to scaling back can pay huge dividends over time.

5. Make sacrifices and buy on cash. This is an extremely important habit that may become the keystone to this entire plan. While many people buy on impulse and put purchases on credit cards so they can have it now, that’s rarely necessary. Rarely do you really need to make a purchase right away. A much better habit is to save up until you have enough money to buy the item on cash. Get into the habit of waiting. Sure, maybe you need new shoes, but can you wait until you have the $50 to buy them? Yes, you can. Sure, maybe you need a new computer, but can you save up the $1,000 you need for it? It’s possible. It’s even possible to make your current car last longer and save up enough to buy your next car on cash — I did this with my last car purchase (actually it was a slightly used mini-van), trading in my SUV and paying the balance on cash. The key is to wait, save up, and buy on cash.

6. Make a commitment to stay away from credit. Getting into some debt may be unavoidable — student loans, for example, or housing loans are usually seen as good debt, especially at low interest rates. Even auto loans aren’t necessarily bad debt, although as I said above, it’s possible to save up enough money to buy a decent used car on cash so you can avoid getting into that debt. But credit card debt is rarely ever desirable, for the average person. I’m not saying you should never use credit cards — obviously they are convenient for online purchases or traveling, although for these purposes you could use a debit card that’s backed by a major credit card company in most cases (I have). But my advice is to just have one credit card (cancel all the rest) and to keep the balance at $0. Only use it when you actually have the money in the bank, and then pay it off immediately. Don’t use your credit card when you don’t have the money — that will just lead to trouble. Make a commitment to doing this, and you’ll avoid credit problems and be in good shape, whether a recession hits or not.
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Article by Zen Habits contributor Jonathan Mead.

I’m sure you’ve heard the saying before “do what you love and the money will follow.” It’s a very cliched and abused axiom. Sometimes the money does follow when you do what you love. Sometimes the magic works. But most of the time, it does not.

When translated into reality, the old saying usually turns into “do what you love and find a way to make it popular and the money follows.” Or “sell your soul and the money follows.”

On the other side of the problem is that if you’re going to make a living doing what you love, you have to find a way to market yourself. Things that are catchy, marketable, and popular are often out of alignment with what you really want to do.

Let’s take the example of the musician. Say his name is Joe. Now, Joe wants to make a living off of his music. Luckily, Joe was born with a lot of creative talent, so he doesn’t have to work very hard at that. But he wasn’t born with the technical ability to play guitar. So, he has to learn how to play. He works hard. He practices scales, fingering, melody and rhythm. He knows that he’s not going to magically wake up one day and be gifted with the amazing ability to play Beethoven’s fifth. That’s why he practices 4 hours a day. He’s dedicated.

After a few years, Joe becomes a pretty incredible musician. He has a full album of songs ready to record. The only problem is Joe sees that his type of music isn’t the type of music that’s played on the radio. Far from it actually. He’s conflicted. So what does he do? He wants to make a living playing music, but he doesn’t want to compromise his integrity by writing songs that he knows will sell. He puts that thought on hold for a while and focuses on finding gigs. Since he’s worked so hard, he picks them up pretty easily. His music is starting to catch on and he’s building a modest following. But that question keeps egging him. If he wants to quit his day job and pursue music full time, he’s going to have to confront that aching question: to sell or not to sell? Should he go for the safe bet and aim for popularity, or should he stay true to himself and preserve his soul?

This is the question that every creative individual has had to face at some point or another. I’ve had to face this question many times and the truth is, it’s not easy. Remaining authentic while trying to market yourself is a tricky business. It doesn’t help that the type of marketing we see day in and day out on television, radio and print is usually downright sleazy or questionable, at best.

So is there such a thing as authentic marketing? Because we all know, your business isn’t going to sell itself. Even if you’re not in business for yourself, and you just want to actually enjoy what you do for a living, you have to find a way to market yourself. Is it possible to scrub out all the mental dirtiness marketing conjures up, and find a way to make it clean? Or at least authentic? I think so. And I’ll tell you how.

First of all, you have to drop the preconceived idea that selling yourself is evil. In a perfect world, you would create a product or service (whether that be being a musician, or otherwise) and it would sell itself. Customers would flock in and you would be scrambling to try to serve them all. In reality, this is far from the truth.

In the real world you have to give people a reason why they want what you have to offer. The art of marketing is effectively communicating in an interesting way, the reason they need what you have. Maybe you’re an authority if your field; maybe you’ve painstakingly studied your area of expertise. Maybe you know something “they” don’t, but need to know to solve their problem.  There are a lot of sleazy ways you can do this (special offer ends in 30 minutes for the first 7 inquiries, call now!) but there are also a lot of ways to do this that aren’t gimmicky and don’t make you feel like you’re selling yourself out to make a buck.

What I’ve come to realize, is by focusing on providing value to others, most of the marketing aspect takes care of itself. When you get too sucked into the marketing side of things, you end up becoming so focused on how to make something popular that the value suffers. In the same way, if you focus too much on the value side, you’ll lack having a clear plan of communicating that value to others (which is really all marketing is). You don’t have to kill your dreams.

If you can focus on providing massive value to other people and figure out an engaging way to communicate that value, everything else will take care of itself. You’ll still have to work hard, but you won’t have to worry about sacrificing your authenticity. And you won’t have to worry about selling your soul to do what you love.

I’ve learned that helping others (providing value) and increasing my knowledge and kills (increasing the ability to provide value) is the key to success.

In the spirit of this post by Leo, I’d like to end this with an offer. How can I help you? Drop me a line on the contact form on my blog, or respond in the comments.

This article was written by Zen Habits contributor Jonathan Mead of the Illuminated Mind blog. For more ways to make a living, not a dying, grab a subscription to Illuminated MInd.

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Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Corey of The Simple Marriage Project.

Throughout my career as a marriage coach and a marriage and family therapist, the number one issue voiced by most couples is “we have trouble communicating.” It’s a common complaint. And many couples think they would benefit from communication training.

Many seem to think if they could better express themselves or if their spouse would only listen and understand what they mean then things in the marriage would dramatically improve. “Maybe if I learned to be more assertive and use more ‘I’ statements we’d have less problems.” While the thought may be genuine and the results of actually implementing some of these techniques may improve the marriage a bit, in my experience the improvements won’t be lasting.

When you get right down to it, communication in marriage is not about being understood by each other, communication is about handling what another person thinks and feels. You see, married couples don’t have trouble communicating. They communicate all too well.

In a committed relationship, you can not not communicate (pardon the double negative).

Communication problems happen because you don’t like what the other person has to say. For instance, you may want your spouse to be more emotionally open and share their feelings, but you interrupt them when they say things you find unpleasant or disagree with (in your view, you may just want to keep the conversation “accurate”). You want a more expressive spouse, but want to control what they express.

Even if you are not talking to each other, you’re still communicating. You each know you don’t want to hear what the other has to say.

Communication break downs occur because you don’t like what the other person is saying, or not saying, not because you can’t communicate. Communicating in marriage is all about being able to handle the message.

When two people are able to handle the message, honesty increases. And when honesty in a relationship increases, you grow more as an individual and closer together. Through this growth you are capable of reaching new levels of passion and intimacy.

So in an effort to grow closer to you loyal Zen Habits readers, I’ll be honest. I’m writing this guest post in the hopes that Simple Marriage’s message will spread and more people will discover ways to get more out of marriage and life. I also hope you’ll benefit from this post and the passion level in your relationships and life will increase… I feel closer to you already.

But being honest with you is not the same as being honest with a spouse. It’s more and more difficult to be honest in each relationship up the hierarchy of importance. As the importance of the person increases, often the level of deep honesty decreases. Largely because their reactions to what you truly think mean more to you and involve more risk.

So my wife calls me up and asks how my morning was. I respond with “good, just writing away.” When in reality, I wasted the entire morning reading other blogs and searching for the latest gadget that will change my life forever. I don’t want to admit to her that I’m lazy. That means I’m admitting it to myself as well.

Or you’re sitting on the beach with your spouse as an attractive member of the opposite sex walks by. At that moment your spouse asks you what you’re thinking, do you tell them?

Being honest brings about growth in yourself and your spouse. If your thoughts are totally inappropriate in the beach scenario, you probably don’t share them with your spouse. But what does your honesty, or lack of honesty, say about you?

So how do you increase the honesty in marriage?

1. Speak up. By speaking up I’m not saying that you remove the filter between your brain and mouth, but speak up more. How often do you avoid replying or bringing something up out of fear of your partner’s reaction? There are times when you need to speak up in order to help your marriage and each other grow.

Many couples fall victim to thinking “if my spouse really cared about me, they’d be able to figure out what I’m feeling or thinking.” What part of your vows stated you’d read each other’s minds for as long as you both shall live? I’m guessing that wasn’t part of the ceremony.

Stop sitting back waiting for your spouse to pick up on the fact that you’re frustrated, pissed, hurt, or lonely and speak up. Two things will happen. One, you will grow up a bit more because you’ve taken charge of your thoughts and emotions and two, your partner will grow up because you’re treating them like an adult who’s capable of handling your thoughts and emotions.

2. Make the obvious, obvious. If you’ve had a stressful day at work, when you come home you know it’s likely to be stressful there as well, right? So rather than letting the elephant in the room (the stress level in your life) walk around freely, point it out before you and your spouse get in to it.

A simple “hey honey, good to see you, (kiss), I’d like about 5 minutes to decompress from my day before I hear about your day, alright?”

Another way to make the obvious obvious is when the discussion starts to get heated, point it out. When you raise your voice in a conversation, it’s no longer about what’s best for all the people involved, it’s about your power and your pride.

3. Grow up. Many people go kicking and screaming into adulthood. I was one of them. I wanted things my way! Still do at times. I used to think that life was all about me. And problems occurred when other people didn’t know this.

Marriage grows you up. Living with another person forces you to grow up. And just when it seems your spouse is done growing you up, your kids take over. That’s a simple fact of marriage.

Recognize this and harness the energy it creates. Rather than seeing your spouse as someone who doesn’t get you, see them as someone who may want more from you. They may be looking for an erotic lover, a passionate friend, a warrior, a true supporter, or simply a partner in life’s adventure.

Read more from Corey at The Simple Marriage Project (or subscribe to his feed).