Delayed gratification refers to resisting the temptation of an immediate reward to obtain an improved reward in the future. It’s about sacrificing a little satisfaction today to increase your quality of life tomorrow. It’s about being able to trade happiness today for more happiness in the future.
Read MoreWhen you are self-deceived, the first step of recovery is to become aware of the deception. I’ve created this checklist of common symptoms to help me identify when I’m self-deceived so that I can get back to reality faster.
Read MoreWe all live our lives according to various rules we’ve programmed into our routines. Most of the time, these rules help us. But sometimes circumstances change, and a rule starts doing more harm than good. When this happens, it’s time to unlearn it.
Read MoreI hope to expand on this concept another time. If there’s one takeaway right now, I think we should all strive to be less sensitive to the incoming and more sensitive about the outgoing.
Read MoreTo maximize performance, we must learn to prioritize important tasks despite delayed gratification. One way to do this is to self-impose a technique called “temptation bundling”. With temptation bundling, you combine a task you should do with a task you want to do.
Read MoreWhen you remove unnecessary complexity from something, that something improves.
Read MoreMost people work hard, but few people compete. Maybe this is why so many hard-working people fail to reach their goals.
Read MoreNot sure where to start? Trying dipping your toe into a small blue pond.
Read MoreTired of procrastinating on an important goal? Try creating a forcing function. A forcing function is anything that requires you to take action and produce a result. When you create a useful forcing function, you indirectly coerce yourself into progressing your goal.
Read MoreIn learning any new subject for long term utility, fluency is the goal. Anything less risks uselessness over time.
Read MoreAs a leader, it’s important to be self-aware. But every time I think I’ve figured myself out, someone exposes a blind spot.
Read MoreI’m beginning to form an opinion of what characteristics make up the ideal leader. The image is still blurry, but it is looking a lot like what Jim Collins refers to as a “Level 5 Leader”. Here’s a matrix to visualize how I’m thinking about this.
Read MoreFailure is a part of our lives. We think and talk about it often. Some say failure is good. Some say failure is bad. In reality, it just is. But, failure is where meaning hides.
Read MoreI’m a big believer in continuous learning. It preserves optionality and maintains relevance in an ever-changing world. It’s also believed to improve mental health and increase happiness. Continuous learning is the process of acquiring new skills and knowledge on a regular basis.
Read MoreWhen a significant life change happens, routines stop. When routines stop, habits don’t trigger. Without longstanding routines and habits, life gets hard. Our automated decision-making ceases and we’re forced to think about everything.
Read MoreWhen we look into the past, we recognize how much personal change we’ve experienced. But when we look into the future, we underestimate how much we’ll change. Psychologists refer to this illusion as the end of history illusion. Despite changing a lot in the past, we don't believe we'll change much in the future.
Read MoreThese equations explain the power of small (one percent) daily changes over the course of a full year (365 days). If we make something one percent better every day for a year, we make it 37 times better. And if we make something one percent worse every day for a year, we make it 97% worse.
Read MoreConfucius, a Chinese philosopher during the 5th and 6th centuries BC, said: By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third, by experience, which is the bitterest. Confucius wrote this more than two thousand years ago. I read this quote almost every Sunday morning in an attempt to extract its full meaning.
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