Tag: Tips and Tricks

How To Upgrade The Quality Of Your Life In 1 Hour

Published on August 5, 2021

You’re naïve if you think the media you consume doesn’t affect your mental health.

Just like you’re naïve if you think the food you consume doesn’t affect your physical health.

What do you think happens when you consume too much bite-sized, sugar-coated, empty-calorie content?

Probably the same thing that happens when you consume too much bite-sized, sugar-coated, empty-calorie food.

If you want your mind to be healthy and fit, you have to treat the media you consume the same way you’d treat the food you’d consume if you wanted to keep your body healthy and fit.

For food, you already know that if it’s in the kitchen, you’re probably going to eat it. Likewise, if the media is in your field of vision, you’re probably going to consume it.

Want to immediately upgrade the quality of your life in one hour?

Step 1: Unfollow, block, mute, and otherwise remove any and all sources of highly processed, click-baity, shallow content.

Step 2: Follow, subscribe, befriend, and otherwise immerse yourself in sources of nutrient dense, clean, trustworthy content.

You can do this for people, brands, and ads alike—for every media platform.

I know of no better way to disproportionately upgrade the quality of your life in as little time.

Big media isn’t going away. Vilifying big media for being sources of shallow content is lazy and irresponsible. About as helpful as vilifying grocery stores for carrying processed foods.

Those who take their media diet seriously will enjoy the same results as the person who takes their food diet seriously.

Ready to upgrade? I hope so. Take an hour and get to it.

Make What’s Hard, Easier

Published on July 21, 2021

Writing a book is hard. Writing one sentence is easy.

Earning a black belt in martial arts is hard. Attending one class is easy.

Freeing yourself from the grips of anxiety is hard. Meditating for a few minutes is easy.

Everything in life that’s hard, is just a series of things that are easy.

You just have to break things down further and take the first, small step.

And then take it again. And again. Until you’ve done what’s hard.

New, Better Ideas

Published on July 1, 2021

New and better doesn’t come until there’s room.

If our minds are filled with old, redundant ideas then maybe it’s time to clear some space.

How?

Write more of your ideas down. Even (especially) the old, redundant ones.

The key here is that remembering takes up thinking space, thus consuming the exact space you need to generate new, better ideas.

Furthermore, it’s often the case that ideas piggyback on each other.

So, whatever time you spend trying to remember initial ideas, is in turn stifling the ideas that want to piggyback off those initial ideas.

Don’t rely on memory.

In paper and pens; thumbs and screens—we must trust.

Keep your headspace clean and clear and ready for whatever you might think of next.

Aligning With Your Life’s Task

Published on May 29, 2021

A good litmus test to gauge whether you’re in alignment with your life’s task or not:

If you retired today, with enough money to last you for the rest of your life, would you keep doing the work you’re doing?

If yes, you’re in alignment. And if you’re able to sustain a suitable life for yourself doing that work, then keep on keeping on! That’s an exciting place to be where the focus can simply be on growing your skills and expanding your impact.

If no, you’re out of alignment. Here’s the thing: maybe you’re doing crappy work for great money? Maybe you have dependents to support? Maybe the money is the means to a better end? Maybe you live an expensive lifestyle?

Here’s my warning: while some of the above mentioned situations might be true for you and your life, what’s also true is that your work is how you’re going to spend a heaping chunk of your life’s time. And if you’re not careful, you might end up retiring with a lifetime trail of unenthused, unimportant, unfulfilled work.

Maybe it’d be better to do great work for crappier money? Maybe you could start a side-hustle to experiment with other, more fulfilling work? Maybe it’s time to set a concrete date when you’re going to make the leap to fulfilling work—rather than leave it at some obscure point in the future? Maybe you could live a more modest lifestyle?

Maybe life isn’t best saved for retirement—maybe the retired life is best lived now?

Motivation Follows Action (Not The Other Way Around)

Published on May 14, 2021

I feel the least motivated to workout right before it’s time to workout. I’m usually tired, achy, sore, and being relentlessly poked and prodded by my brain about everything else I have to do (and why I should skip). Exercise is never appealing at the onset.

I feel the most motivated about working out right after I finish. I’m pumped up with endorphins, reminded of all the benefits of exercise, and in a much better place to handle the endless list of tasks in front of me. There’s never a workout I regret doing.

Most of the time when I sit to write, I feel uninspired and unmotivated. It’s only on a rare occasion that I’m motivated and have an idea of what I want to say. My norm is to look at the dreaded blank page cluelessly.

Here’s the thing: I write on both occasions; I workout on both occasions—I try to be the person who doesn’t miss. I try to remember that as soon as I hit “publish” I’m going to be back on cloud nine. And that as soon as I finish that last rep of that last set, I’ll be exercises biggest fan once more.

You see, you don’t show up with motivation so that you can take the actions—you show up with the actions so that you can take the motivation. The trick is getting used to showing up without motivation. Once you can get in the habit of doing that, the result is an unwavering dedication that can last a lifetime.

This post became the introduction for: 16 Fierce Jocko Willink Quotes from Discipline Equals Freedom

Leave No Room For Exceptions

Published on May 12, 2021

“Exceptions lead to more exceptions. It’s really easy to justify not doing [a] new habit (or doing an old habit you’re trying to quit) by saying, ‘Just one time won’t hurt.’ Except that it will, because now you think it’s OK to make exceptions. And now you don’t really trust yourself to stick to your promise to yourself. It’s much more effective to not make exceptions—catch yourself if you’re thinking about it and trying to justify it, and remember your motivations. When I quit smoking, I told myself Not One Puff Ever (NOPE).”
Leo Babauta, Zen Habits

The habit changes that I’ve had the most success with have been the ones that I’ve been the most strict with myself about. When I started drinking coffee black, I told myself No Cream Or Sugar Ever. When I cut donuts from my diet, I told myself Not One Bite Ever. When I stopped drinking alcohol, I told myself Not One Sip Ever.

Like Babauta, I made sure there were no exceptions or ‘gray-areas’ to these habit changes—and while that might sound harsh and intense, it actually made the habit change process easier for me.

The problem with setting up more vague goals like, “I’m going to try to stop drinking my coffee with cream and sugar,” or “I’m going to try to eat less donuts,” or “I’m really not going to go out and drink as much anymore,” is that it leaves room for mental negotiation. Which, as I’m sure you’re all too familiar with, leads to long, hard, draining mental fights.

And the problem with long, hard, draining mental fights with your forever argumentative, unrelenting mind is that—you’ll eventually lose.But, just one donut won’t hurt, right? Well, how do you decide which days to follow this goal and which days not to? How will you know for sure when it’s okay to stray from your intentions? Why is it okay to mess up on some days but not others?

When you set out strong from the beginning and make your goals “black-and-white,” whatever they might be for you, there’s no question.No confusion. No special situations or exceptions. The answer is always and every time, “NOPE.” Easy. End of discussion. Onto the next thought.

Deciding Who You Want To Be—Thinking Vs. Telling

Published on May 3, 2021

“First tell yourself what kind of person you want to be, then do what you have to do. For in nearly every pursuit we see this to be the case. Those in athletic pursuits first choose the sport they want, and then do that work.”
Epictetus, via MoveMe Quotes

Telling yourself what kind of person you want to be isn’t the same as thinking to yourself what kind of person you want to be. Telling yourself is definitive—it represents a decision made. Thinking to yourself is undecided—it represents an ongoing debate. And how can you become someone you aren’t sure you want to be?

Before you can become the person you want to become, you have to decide who, exactly, that is. This is why telling yourself comes first. Most people, I suspect, keep a rough idea somewhere in their mind and roughly do what they think they have to do. But, their actions aren’t precisely pointed and are, as a result, ambiguous.

In athletic pursuits, picking comes pre-packaged with the correlated work—there’s no ambiguity. Pick basketball and your work will be dribbling, shooting, and passing. Pick baseball and your work will be catching, throwing, and hitting. Pick volleyball and your work will be serving, bumping, and spiking. And so forth.

In character development, however, we need to draw out our own work after we pick who we want to be—it’s unclear and can be confusing. If we pick kind, for example, we need to decide to whom, in what ways, how often, what we’ll do even if we don’t want to be kind, and so forth. It certainly isn’t as simple as dribbling, throwing, and spiking.

But, here’s the thing: it can be. To whom? Everybody. In what ways? Smiling, saying “Hi” first, complimenting, contributing, and listening. How often? In each moment. And if I don’t want to be kind? Create a boundary, remind yourself of your “why,” and spend some time improving your state. And lo and behold, you’ll have your work drawn out for you.

It’s only simple after it’s drawn out—not before. Before we decide who we want to become, we’re essentially moving our pencil across a blank piece of paper arbitrarily. Drawing happens, but without an outcome that we actually desire—because we haven’t identified what that outcome is! Once we decide, suddenly, our hand guides our pencil in an entirely different way. And what was once random and confusing, becomes pointed and clear.