Category: Uncategorized

If you’re limited on time (and everyone is because time is a finite resource), spend your most productive hours and the greatest amount of time doing meaningful activities that move you closer to your goals.

Why are you wasting precious time doing things that don’t matter – things that aren’t important and aren’t urgent? Find ways to eliminate what is useless, delegate what can be, and automate repetitive yet necessary tasks. Batch like-minded tasks to be completed at the same time to not disrupt your fast brain or slow brain activities. This should free up your time to work on what matters most.

You’re only human. Even if everyone around you only sees the good. Even if you don’t lose your temper and portray that you have it all together, you know the truth. Sometimes you get angry. Sometimes you make mistakes. Own up to those feelings and actions.

Do not let others build your ego, making your mind more fragile in the process as it craves the applause and recognition of others.

Nobody is perfect – not you, not your spouse, not your best friend, and not the famous person who you admire and look up to. Admit this to yourself and to others, set realistic expectations, and avoid the trappings of thinking too highly of yourself.

“We are what we repeatedly do, therefore, excellence is not an act but a habit.” – Aristotle

“How you do anything is how you do everything.” – Unknown

If you’re always looking for the easy way out, cutting corners, or taking shortcuts, you’ll never reach your full potential. But, just as the two quotes above say, you are what you repeatedly do and how you do anything is how you do everything. Work to eliminate your bad habits (cutting corners) and replace them with forming and repeating good habits. There is no such thing as a magic pill.

For example, say you are looking into getting gastric bypass surgery to lose weight. That only addresses the symptom (obesity), not the root cause (eating too much and living a sedentary lifestyle). If you haven’t changed the habits that got you to where you are, having the surgery is likely to only be a temporary fix. The surgery will help you lose weight (the easy part in this scenario), but you didn’t have to earn it. You didn’t have to change your habits (the hard part) to get your desired result. Over time, if you haven’t changed the bad habits that got you to where you are, you will revert to being overweight. You become what you do.

Make sure to always look for the root cause of the issue you’re experiencing and try to solve for that, not the symptom. Once you determine what habits need to be stopped and what habits need to be created, begin implementing them on a daily basis and you will be more likely to see a long-term solution.

“Throw out your conceited opinions, for it is impossible for a person to begin to learn what he thinks he already knows.” – Epictetus

“We are confused by what it means to admit our ignorance. It is not a mark of weakness, but of wisdom. It is not something to hide, but to display. It is not something to feel embarrassed by, but excited by.” – The Daily Stoic

If you feel like you have nothing left to learn, you will hinder your growth. Even if you are an expert in your field, there is always more to understand in our ever changing world. Approach each day, each situation, as if you were an eager amateur, trying to soak up all of the knowledge available to you. If you don’t understand something, or if something doesn’t make sense, ask a question. Have the other person clarify what they said. This will do several things…

First, it will help you improve your knowledge (of a product, an idea, or of how the other individual thinks).

Second, it will show that you’re interested in what the other person is saying, which will encourage them to talk more.

Third, it will show that you are willing to admit that you don’t know everything, which is endearing.

And fourth, it can help the other person become a better communicator, so that next time they discuss a subject they might be able to explain it more clearly. (Now you’re both growing as individuals!)

Do not let your ego get in the way (whether it is you not asking a question for fear of looking foolish OR whether you cut the person off by talking over them/inputting your ideas, making them feel as if their ideas don’t matter). I used to let my ego get in the way all the time at school. That was when I had a “fixed” mindset. People told me I was “smart” and my thoughts were telling me that smart people don’t ask questions. I couldn’t be further from the truth.

If you don’t ask questions, you stunt your growth. Don’t be a know-it-all. Once you make the active decision to ask better questions (not something that can be easily looked up, but thought-provoking questions), you will gain more respect from others while you increase your knowledge.

Before you can truly make the most progress, taking the biggest metaphorical step forward, you need to eliminate your worst habits before adding good habits. Of course, taking the right actions is always good, but make sure you stop taking the wrong actions first.

Here are three examples:

1) You may decide to add more vegetables into your diet to be healthier, but if you don’t stop eating junk food everyday, you’re not going to get as much benefit as you might hope.

2) If you’re deeply in debt and get a pay raise, that’s a good start to getting back on the right track. But if you want to become financially free, you’ll need to reel in your spending habits that got you into debt in the first place. (It doesn’t matter how much money you make if you spend all of it.)

3) A popular idea coming from politicians these days is to “forgive” the $1.5 trillion dollars in student loans that this country is facing. Yet despite all this talk of forgiving student loans, the government still federally insures/guarantees these loans (meaning that the money owed stays with the borrower no matter what, even if they declare bankruptcy). Instead of forgiving student loans while continuing to make federally insured student loans, why don’t we first stop guaranteeing the loans and then work on a solution to help those who are drowning in student loan debt?

Imagine that you’re on a boat in the middle of a lake and there is a hole in the boat letting in water. The most efficient first step would be to patch the hole to stop water from coming in, then working to eliminate the water that is already in the boat. But what most people do is react. They start scooping water out of the boat, but do nothing about the hole. Next thing you know, they’re exhausted from working harder and harder to get the water out, while still more water rushes in. If only they worked to solve the root cause of the problem first, then the rest of their life would be easier.

If you are able to find the root cause of the problem, instead of only addressing the symptom(s), then you could make real progress.

Don’t always look to add more good habits to your schedule. Time is finite and you will eventually run out of it. The best thing you can do is work to eliminate what is hurting you first, to stop doing things that impede your progress, to stop making mistakes, and then you’ll be able to grow exponentially by adding in the right actions.