Jlitven's List: Self-Improvement

• Combine doing less with supreme confidence and you have the essence of cool.
• In the paper “Coolness: An Empirical Investigation” rebelliousness was found to be a key component of cool
• Breaking the rules makes you appear powerful.
• • Less
   
  • Be Confident
   
  • Know The Rules And Break Them
   
  • Focus On Attitude And Body Language Will Follow
   
  • Cool Isn’t Always The Coolest. 

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• 1) Get out in nature
• 2) Exercise
• 3) Spend time with friends and family
• 4) Express gratitude
• 5) Meditate
• 6) Get enough sleep
• 7) Challenge yourself
• 8) Laugh
• 9) Touch someone
• 10) Be optimistic

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• Do not stay in a job you dislike.
• Choose a career for the intrinsic rewards, not the financial ones.
• Don’t give up on looking for a job that makes you happy.
• Emotional intelligence trumps every other kind.
• Everyone needs autonomy.
• No one— not a single person out of a thousand— said that to be happy you should try to work as hard as you can to make money to buy the things you want.
• No one— not a single person— said it’s important to be at least as wealthy as the people around you, and if you have more than they do it’s real success.
• No one— not a single person— said you should choose your work based on your desired future earning power.
• Now it may sound absurdly obvious when worded in this way. But this is in fact how many people operate on a day-to-day basis.
• You should ask yourself this: do I wake up in the morning looking forward to work?

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• 1. Set bold but realistic goals.
• 2. Learn to see your accomplishments.
• 3. Cut down on comparing yourself.
• 4. Develop yourself. 
• It is this combination of developing yourself, challenging yourself and deliberately thinking about yourself in more constructive ways that represents the ideal recipe for building self-belief.

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• Whenever I get stressed, I exercise.
• Recognize stress for what it actually is: fiction. Worse: it’s really crappy fiction. If you can do that, stress becomes a lot easier to ignore.
• I make a to-do list, connect with those I trust, and start dealing with the bigger picture by turning the details into swallowable bits, instead of trying to take care of everything at once.
• I suggest to clients to write. When you are stressed it is usually because you are trying to juggle too many things at once and keeping it all in your head. Instead of just thinking about problems and possible solutions over and over; get it out on paper.
• Breathe deeply to activate the parasympathetic nervous system and switch from that fight-or-flight mentality to more of the rest-and-digest.
• Drink plenty of water to flush out the over-accumulation of stress hormones
• And head to BED early because sleep does wonders to help our bodies recover from stress.
• Another thing that generally makes us stressed out is ‘time-traveling’ – worrying about the past or worrying about the future. If I ever find myself doing this, I bring myself back to the present moment by doing Mindfulness Meditation, where you focus on your breathing in the present moment and let all thoughts of the past and future go.
• Oh Lord… I dance. I work out, I move my body because it helps quiet my mind.
• “This is my body preparing me for the challenges in front of me. My heart is racing so I can have enough blood in my brain to react quickly and well. My body is sweating to cool me down from overheating. I am being prepared to be ready for this.”

• If you are already stressed and a reframe is crazy talk, do this:

  - Pause

  - Step away from the situation (work, problem, fight) as best you can

  - Go outside, go for a walk

  - While you are walking, focus on your breath. Take deep, full breaths. Hold them, and slowly breathe out

  - Finally (and this is the most important part) do this in sequence: breathe in, look down, close your eyes, slowly lift your face so you are now looking at the sky, and open your eyes and gently release your breath

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• Can’t change diet: Same as exercise really. Although there are also often emotional issues, in which case the fears can be very similar to the ones that lead to the shopping habit and financial problems.
• Aren’t doing work you love: You maybe don’t know what you want to do, which means you haven’t committed to really exploring (fear of failing), or you know but haven’t taken the plunge (fear of failure), or fear that you’re not good enough.
• We can be aware of the fear. When we are struggling, suffering in some way, be aware that fear is stopping us. Look into what the fear might be.
• Then we can see how the fear is hurting us. And see how that hurt is self-caused. How we can let go of the suffering by letting go of the fear.
• We can be grateful for the opportunities that this moment has brought, rather than fearing the change it represents. For example, a loss is an opportunity for reinvention, doing something hard is an opportunity to create or do good in the world, and change is always an opportunity for learning and growth.
• It can be done. And then soon after, another fear will appear. And we practice again.
• With this practice, we can work with the fear that’s causing our problems. We can accept it without letting it stop us. And this practice, because we are alleviating our own suffering, is an act of self-compassion.

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• • Capture to-do’s. Get it out of your head and in a system: paper or text file.
   
• Pick 3 MITs (Most Important Things) each morning and focus on doing them first. Get them done before anything else.
• Do one thing at a time – put all focus on the doing of the thing while you’re doing it.
• Don’t check email first thing in the morning or last thing at night.

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• There will be times when you falter, almost invariably. Who will you turn to when you need encouragement?
• Not having support.
• Not knowing your triggers. This is an important key to changing habits. Every habit has at least one trigger — an event that immediately precedes the habit.
• So when you try to break a habit, you have to know all of your triggers (log it for a few days) and then create a positive habit to replace the negative habit for each of the triggers. Running, for example, replaced smoking when I got stressed.
• For positive habit changes, such as exercise, you need a trigger that will happen every day (or as often as you need it to happen).

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• ‘All men’s miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone.’ ~Blaise Pascal
• We’ll eat junk food or shop to comfort ourselves, because these things are replacements for love.
• But here’s the secret: being alone is empowering. The quiet of being alone is joyful.
• We tend to see aloneness as bleak, depressing, scary. But it can be seen as freeing, as an opportunity for growth, an opportunity to get to know yourself.
• Can you accept yourself, when you look closely at yourself?
• This is nothing to fear, but to celebrate. Aloneness is beauty.
• Learn to be OK with getting lost.
• Become self-sufficient.
• Not at all — but if you aren’t OK with being alone, then being in a relationship is going to be fundamentally flawed.
• You need the other person to pay attention to you, to give you validation and comfort and love. Now, all of those things are nice, but needing someone else for them means you become needy, desperate, and those aren’t attractive qualities.
• Learn that you are OK, just as you are, without anyone else to “complete you”.
• You’re now two whole people, coming together for the benefit of the both of you.
• You can celebrate the times when you’re alone. Get to know yourself. Do things that rely on very little — reading a good book, writing, playing music, dancing alone, sketching, learning a new skill. Go for hikes, discover the world without needing to instantly share it online.

• Be alone and be happy with yourself.

    

  You deserve it.

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• One Goal
• Find inspiration.
• Get excited.
• Build anticipation.
• Post your goal.
• Commit publicly.
• Think about it daily.
• Get support.
• Realize that there’s an ebb and flow.
• Stick with it.
• Start small. Really small.
• Build on small successes.
• Read about it daily.
• Call for help when your motivation ebbs.
• Think about the benefits, not the difficulties.
• Squash negative thoughts; replace them with positive ones.

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• Signature strengths are the secret to experiencing more “flow” at work and in life.
• Too much time is a burden
• The happiest people are those that are very busy but don’t feel rushed
• Turns out, there was one—and only one—characteristic that distinguished the happiest 10 percent from everybody else: the strength of their social relationships.
• the capacity to love and be loved was the single strength most clearly associated with subjective well-being at age eighty.

• So what do you need to be doing? 

  Things you’re good at.
• Happiness in the moment is not everything.
• People who deliberately exercised their signature strengths on a daily basis became significantly happier for months.
• social support was a far greater predictor of happiness than any other factor, more than GPA, family income, SAT scores, age, gender, or race. In fact, the correlation between social support and happiness was 0.7.
• Happiness increased when people performed all five giving acts in a single day, rather than doing one a day.
• Giving makes us happier than receiving.
• We need happy feelings but we also need meaning in our lives.
• Do Not Stay In A Job You Hate
• One hundred seems to be a magical number when it comes to giving.
• Happiness went with being a taker more than a giver, while meaningfulness was associated with being a giver more than a taker.
• Research shows that if people start volunteering two hours a week, their happiness, satisfaction and self-esteem go up a year later.
• Schedule the things that make you happy.

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• “The man who makes everything that leads to happiness depend upon himself, and not upon other men, has adopted the very best plan for living happily. This is the man of moderation, the man of manly character and of wisdom.”

   

  - Plato
• According to psychologist Daniel Kahneman, humans consistently over-estimate the value or pleasure of what they don’t have and over-estimate the pain or loss of losing something they do have.
• We estimate the happiness of acquiring something we don’t have to be far greater than the pain of remaining without it.
• If what we remember was somewhat painful and unenjoyable, our brain goes ahead and assumes that all of it was painful and unenjoyable and paints it accordingly. If in our future fantasies all we can imagine are the enjoyable and exciting aspects of an experience, our brain goes ahead and fills in the blanks and assumes everything about the situation will be great.
• On average, when measured a year later, people who had won the lottery weren’t any happier than people who had become paralyzed or than people who had neither happen to them.
• Gilbert’s research showed that whatever major life events happen to you — you buy a new sports car, you get fired from your job, your spouse cheats on you and leaves you, you win a paid vacation to Tahiti, whatever — your happiness will naturally return to an original baseline level after a period of time.
• A UN study found that above a middle-class income, money has no direct correlation to happiness.
• Not only does everyone have a different baseline happiness, but people are able to slowly inch their baseline happiness up or down over time depending on how they live their life.
• But research shows that where we drive isn’t what makes us happy in the long run (as our psychological immune system showed us). In fact, what increases our baseline happiness is how much control we feel we have over driving.
• People who feel they have little to no control over where they’re going suffer from low baseline levels of happiness, regardless of the destinations and experiences they have along the way. People who feel they have complete control of where they’re going have high baseline levels of happiness, regardless of the quality of destinations they go to.
• Take Responsibility for Everything In Your Life.
• You have responsibility for everything that occurs in your life. You may not be responsible for it happening to you, but you’re always responsible for how you respond to it.
• At every turn ask yourself not “Why did this happen to me?” but instead “What am I going to do about it?”
• Build a strong habit of courage.
• The fact is the less courage you have, the less you’re going to be able to act despite fear, the less control over your life you’re going to have, and therefore, the lower your baseline happiness will be.
• Set and achieve small and attainable goals.
• Once you achieve it, you’ll send your unconscious a message of: “I did it, I’m a success. I have control.” This will raise your self-esteem, your confidence, increase your will power and belief in yourself for your next goal and as a result, you’ll feel better about yourself.
• Minimize reliance on external validation.
• Internal validation is driving the car. External validation is the nice destinations.
• Are you trying to get that six pack in the gym to impress girls or because being in incredibly good physical condition is something you want to achieve for yourself?
• Cultivate a perspective beyond yourself.
• studies show that people who are able to integrate perspectives outside of their own into their own thinking have higher baselines of happiness and fluctuate in happiness less.
• Research shows that keeping a journal, and writing down what one is grateful for in their life, both lead to greater levels of baseline happiness.
• Another action that I believe leads to a higher baseline happiness is to actually give up many possessions.
• but the lack of possessions, in my experience, actually forces us to become more internally validated.
• what aspects of your life are there because of external forms of validation? What parts of your life are there because of a genuine passion and joy? What useless activities or possessions can you get rid of? What small and attainable goals can you set for yourself and nobody else?
• • Resource list of blog posts and books on happiness.

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• • The word “yes” leads to happiness.
   
  • The word “no” leads to success.
• “Yes” creates opportunity. Saying yes a lot makes more things happen.
• The happiest people are those that are very busy but don’t feel rushed
• And research shows that making more opportunities — saying yes — actually makes you luckier.
• as we get older we remember the good and forget the bad. So more stuff makes for happier memories.
• we regret the things we didn’t do more than the things we did.
• “No” creates focus.
• Those at the top of their field work obsessively and relentlessly.
• Make a few of your prime hours inviolate. Anything threatening them gets a “no.” Period.
• Focus on protected days instead of protected hours.
• And start experimenting with protected time to make sure both are getting their fair balance.

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• 1. You’re afraid to stand out among the crowd.
• Emerson wrote, “Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the self-reliance of every one of its members.”
• If you have weak boundaries or are not confident with your own ideas and desires, then you’re not going to make it very far.
• 2. You’re not persistent enough.
• 3. You lack humility.
• 4. You fail to network and build strong relationships.
• Research shows that living without regular social contact is as unhealthy as smoking cigarettes.
• 5. You’d rather argue against advice instead of taking it.
• try something -> get feedback and results -> learn from feedback and results -> try something new.
• 6. You’re too distracted.
• 7. You don’t take responsibility for what happens in your life.
• 8. You don’t believe it’s possible.
• people who over-estimate what they’re capable of are far more likely to actually, you know, get off their ass and try. And when you try and learn from your failures, you can eventually lead yourself to success.
• 9. You’re afraid to care.

• 10. Deep down, you don’t think you deserve what you want.

   

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• As humans, we’re wired for comparison. It’s an inevitable facet of our being. We are constantly trying to gauge how we measure up to those around us.
• We may not be able to stop measuring ourselves against others, but we can decide which yardstick we use to measure.
• You get to choose how you measure success.
• Many of society’s metrics are useful measurements for us. Many of them are not.
• “Let’s pretend you had a choice to date one of two women. One is stunningly gorgeous but is immature and not enjoyable to be around. The other one is average-looking physically, but you are always happy when you are around her. Which one would you choose to be with?”
• “What would you rather do? Sleep with 10 girls who don’t excite you? Or sleep with one who blows your mind night after night?”
• Many of us think relationships will make us happy, but emotional health should be the goal and relationships the side effect.
• You’re single and alone right now, but you’re happy and proud of yourself. That makes you successful.
• The metrics of success which we choose lead to long-term real life consequences, they determine everything.

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• So, for instance, someone who is bullied in class regularly growing up may rationalize that he’s made fun of because he’s stupid and will never succeed intellectually. This explanation is easier to stomach than the alternative: that people can be cruel and that you must stand up for yourself sometimes.
• The most unfortunate aspect of limiting beliefs is that our mind is constructed to unconsciously find evidence which already supports our currently-held beliefs. In psychology, this is referred to as the subjective validation bias. Once the belief is adopted, our mind then goes on auto-pilot to continue reinforcing it.
• Self-fulfilling prophecy is when our beliefs unconsciously alter our actions to reinforce those same beliefs.
• It’s a vicious cycle, as belief influences behavior which in turn influences results which reinforces the original belief that led to a negative result to begin with.
• How to Break Your Ropes
• 1. Self-Skepticism
• 2. Collect Evidence to the Contrary
• 3. Plan on Being the Exception
• 4. Take Full Responsibility for Failures
• You are capable of so much more than you currently think. Why not find evidence that supports THAT belief?
• Or as Steve Jobs once said: “It’s the people who are crazy enough to believe they can change the world who do.”

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• Incorporating a lot of the blog’s strategies can be as easy as buying a notebook.
• Writing forces you to organize and clarify your thoughts. You learn better when you write things down and are more likely to follow through.
• 1) Write down what you’re looking forward to.
• 2) Write down your progress.
• 3) Write down your goals
• 4) Write down your ideas.
• 5) Write down your anxieties
• 6) Write about your relationship
• 7) Write down the good things that happen to you.
• 8) Write down your story.

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• 1. “If I could just X, then my life would be amazing.”
• It’s an excellent evolutionary strategy, but a poor happiness strategy. If we’re always looking for what’s next it becomes quite difficult to appreciate what is now.
• If life is a hamster wheel, then the goal isn’t to actually get anywhere, it’s to find a way to enjoy running.
• 2. “If I had more time, I would do X.”
• 3. “If I say or do X, people will think I’m stupid.”
• 4. “If I just say or do X, then that person will finally change.”
• 5. “Everything is great/Everything sucks.”
• 6. “There’s something inherently wrong or different about me.”
• But here’s the truly messed up part: We’re afraid to let go of the beliefs that we’re inherently deficient.
• 7. “I would change, but I can’t because of X.”
• 8. “I can’t live without X.”
• So caught up in modern society’s cycle of consumerism, many of us have forgotten that, psychologically speaking, we already have everything we need.
• 9. “I know what I’m doing.”

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• Rule #1: Be skeptical of everything, first and foremost yourself.
• To become permanently attached to one belief-system without skepticism is to remain stuck forever.
• But above all, question myself. Look at my emotions and impulses honestly and ask why I have them. Look at my rationalizations and beliefs and question their validity. Are they serving me? Why do I have them? Are they necessary? Is there something more true?
• Rule #2: Honestly express your thoughts and feelings to the greatest extent of your self-awareness (within relevance).

• Rule #3: Always challenge yourself to care more, both about yourself and others.

   
• If you don’t care about yourself, then you’re not going to be able to genuinely care about others from a place of strength, but rather from a place of neediness.
• Rule #4: Judge people based on their behavior and nothing else; not their race, gender, sexual orientation, intelligence, talent, religion, nationality or social status. This also applies to yourself.
• Rule #5: Your actions and emotions are your responsibility and nobody else’s and vice-versa.
• I don’t involve myself in people who don’t respect my autonomy (emotional and otherwise) and I always strive to respect the autonomy of others. This means that I don’t try to “fix” people and I don’t look to be “saved” by anyone. If I fuck up, it’s on me. If I am upset or sad or bored, it’s on me.
• Rule #6: Fear failure but never let it stop you.
• Fear is normal. Fear means that there’s probably something I should do. Fear means that I’m rooting out my own ignorance and expressing myself more honestly. All growth begins in fear. Therefore I feel the fear and do it anyway.
• Rule #7: Invest in knowledge, experiences and relationships, not status or possessions.
• The business coach Zig Ziglar taught that if your goal is to go out and find a way to get money from a thousand people, those thousand people will try to find reasons to not give it to you. But if your goal is to go out and make the lives of a thousand people better, then those thousand people will gladly give you money and much more. This has become one of the defining principles of my life.

• Rule #8: Doubts, mistakes, insecurities are normal parts of life. Don’t avoid them, but instead use them as further motivation to improve.

   
• Rule #9: Practice Gratitude
• Appreciation for what you have and where you are is an active habit that must be consciously practiced. Practicing gratitude increases happiness and well-being. It also makes you far more pleasant to be around.
• Tell your friends and family what you like about them. Tell a woman what you find attractive about her.
• Rule #10: Nothing in life is so serious that you can’t laugh about it. Relax.
• Satire and humor allow you to say truths that are otherwise difficult or unacceptable to say but can be truer than any serious statement.

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