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Category: Thinking Clearly

Self-Awareness

Published on November 24, 2021

Without it, we could go years thinking we’re on track, only to realize we spend all that time moving in the wrong direction.

How to build self-awareness?

Well, let’s not complicate this—you simply have to spend time turning your awareness onto your self.

A good way to guide this practice is to work your way through some tough, meaningful questions. Some of which might include:

  • What are my most important priorities? Is how I’m spending my time reflective of what’s most/least important to me? Where am I spending too much/not enough time?
  • Am I enjoying the work that I’m doing? Or am I using work as a means to get to an end? How can I focus more on the means and less on the ends?
  • How can I simplify my life? How can I add more meaning to my life? How can I accelerate my personal growth? How can I remove desire and add presence?

A few minutes per day sure beats losing a few years in the wrong direction.

You Aren’t Doing Negative Self-Talk Right.

Published on November 22, 2021

Game changer: add “up until now…” to any and all negative self-talk.

  • [Up until now] I’m lazy and gross.
  • [Up until now] My self-control sucks.
  • [Up until now] I have no idea what I’m doing with my life.

Because now, that version of you is in the past.

Negative self-talk might come from a seemingly inevitable negative reality, but the only thing inevitable is your continued negative reality if you don’t change how you talk to yourself.

You will never outperform your self-image.

Now is as good of a time as any to change it.

The Crux Of Growth

Published on November 22, 2021

Everybody wants what they don’t have.

Don’t be everybody.

When you want what you already have, you close the loop.

You can finally focus on enjoying rather than having to constantly bear the feeling of lacking.

When you choose contentment, the byproduct is happiness.

When you choose discontentment, the byproduct is unhappiness.

Let growth come from your happiness, don’t let unhappiness become the crux of your growth.

On To The Next

Published on November 19, 2021

When you’re done with an application on your computer, you close it.

If you keep that program open as you open other ones, you’ll slowly start seeing a progressive lag in performance.

Especially if you leave a big program like Photoshop open.

The same is true for your mind.

Close applications before you move on to the next.

Can’t Sleep?

Published on November 17, 2021

Wondering why your mind starts running wild right before bed?

Maybe it’s because you’re not confronting the problems your mind gets wild about while you’re awake.

Maybe you’re so distracted during the day—from the pings, beeps, bells, busyness, and notifications—that your mind conveniently forgets.

Until, finally, you turn the screens off, put your phone down, stop all conversation, and close your eyes to all of the incoming information of the world.

…Of course that’s when your mind all-of-a-sudden gets wild—it remembers. And it can finally start working its way through some of those damn open-ended problems.

Mental confrontation exhausts the mind—so sleep comes easier.

Mental avoidance simply delays the mental confrontation until it can no longer be avoided.

Which is, usually (and inconveniently), right before you sleep.

Smarts And Systems

Published on November 16, 2021

The people who work at Lexus aren’t more tired at the end of the day than those who work at Ford.

And neither are the people who work at Rolex versus the people who work at Fossil.

Creating a higher quality product isn’t about effort.

It’s the people who learn how to work smarter, not harder, that find ways to get ahead.

It’s the people who learn how to create the right systems, not try to do things with no system, that are able to facilitate faster growth.

Focusing merely on effort (of yourself and your team) is almost guaranteed to ensure that your quality problem will persist.

Focus on smarts and systems instead.

You Don’t “Run Out” Of Ideas

Published on November 9, 2021

Generating ideas is not like emptying a reservoir.

You don’t tap into your idea source and then drain ideas until they’re all gone.

It works more like, well, a generator.

It requires mechanical energy in, but as a result, you get electrical energy out.

You expend energy getting into the right state, meeting up with the right people, organizing the tasks of your day, staring at enough blank screens, cataloguing through the other ideas of the world until—it happens.

Your mechanical energy is converted.

And you are no longer draining a reservoir, but rather are generating a type of electrical output that lights up your mind and charges your whole body.

The reality is, if you feel like you’re “out of ideas,” it isn’t because you’ve emptied what you had—what’s really happened is your generator needs to be looked at and fixed.

This might involve a change in how you optimize your state, changing who you spend your time with, organizing your tasks in more inspiring ways, being more patient with your process, forcing yourself to get more bored, or spending more time cataloguing other idea sources.

And if your generator isn’t broken, then, you simply need to put more mechanical energy in.