Sunday, August 30, 2020

What I've learned since moving to D.C. (some of which should be obvious): 0183

9101.  Do your best to spend at least as much energy expressing your positive feelings as you do the negative ones;
9102.  For any change to happen in your life, you must be wrong about something;
9103.  If you’re sitting there, miserable day after day then that means you’re already wrong about something major in your life and, until you’re able to question yourself to find it, nothing will change;
9104.  Many people are able to ask themselves if they’re wrong, but few are able to go the extra step and admit what it would mean if they were wrong;
9105.  The potential meaning behind our wrongness is often painful.  Not only does it call into question our values, but it forces us to consider what a different, contradictory value could potentially look and feel like;
9106.  Being able to look at and evaluate different values without necessarily adopting them is perhaps the central skill required in changing one’s own life in a meaningful way;
9107.  Would being wrong create a better or a worse problem than my current problem for both myself and others?
9108.  Beliefs are arbitrary; worse yet, they’re often made up after the fact to justify whatever values and metrics we’ve chosen for ourselves;
9109.  If it’s down to me being screwed up or everybody else being screwed up, it is far more likely that I’m the one who’s screwed up;
9110.  If it feels like it’s you versus the world, chances are it’s really just you versus yourself;
9111.  Failure is the way forward;
9112.  Failure itself is a relative concept;
9113.  Making money by itself is a lousy metric for yourself.  You could make plenty of money and be miserable just as you could be broke and be pretty happy;
9114.  Improvement at anything is based on thousands of tiny failures and the magnitude of your success is based on how many times you’ve failed at something;
9115.  If someone is better than you at something then it’s likely because s/he has failed at it more than you have.  If someone is worse than you it’s likely because s/he hasn’t been through all of the painful learning experiences you have;
9116.  We can be truly successful only at something we’re willing to fail at.  If we’re unwilling to fail then we’re unwilling to succeed;
9117.  A lot of this fear of failure comes from having chosen bad values;
9118.  Bad values involve intangible external goals outside of our control;
9119.  Better values are process-oriented;
9120.  If your metric for the value “success by worldly standards” is “buy a house and a nice care” and, you spend 20 years working to achieve it, once it’s achieved the metric has nothing left to give you;
9121.  For many of us, our proudest achievements come in the face of the greatest adversity.  Our pain often makes us stronger, more resilient and more grounded;
9122.  Fear, anxiety and sadness are not necessarily always undesirable or unhelpful states of mind; rather they are often representative of the necessity pain of psychological growth.  And to deny that pain is to deny our own potential;
9123.  Our most radical changes in perspective often happen at the tail end of our worst moments;
9124.  It’s only when we feel intense pain that we’re willing to look at our values and question why they seem to be failing us;
9125.  If you’re stuck on a problem, don’t sit there and think about it; just start working on it.  Even if you don’t know what you’re doing, the simple act of working on it will eventually cause the right ideas to show up in your head;
9126.  Action isn’t just the effect of motivation; it’s also the cause of it;
9127.  Action -> Inspiration -> Motivation;
9128.  When the standard of success becomes merely acting, when any result is regarded as progress and important, when inspiration is seen as a reward rather than a prerequisite, we propel ourselves ahead.  We feel free to fail and that failure moves us forward;
9129.  Attitude isn’t everything, but it is one thing that can make a tremendous difference in your life;
9130.  Your attitude is the paintbrush of your mind;
9131.  You cannot disconnect attitude from reality and expect success;
9132.  Your attitude can’t substitute for competence.  Some people confuse confidence, which is a function of attitude, with competence, which is a function of ability;
9133.  Your attitude can’t substitute for experience;
9134.  Your attitude cannot change the facts;
9135.  If you don’t like something, change it.  If you cannot change it, change your attitude.  Don’t complain;
9136.  Your attitude cannot substitute for personal growth;
9137.  Your attitude will not stay good automatically.  It’s easier to maintain an attitude than it is to regain an attitude;
9138.  Attitude alone isn’t going to cut it.  That doesn’t mean it isn’t really, really important;
9139.  Attitude is a key, powerful ingredient in the recipe for success, fulfillment and purpose;
9140.  While your attitude isn’t everything, it can do a whole lot for you; in many situations, it’s the difference-maker;
9141.  Your attitude makes a difference in your approach to life;
9142.  Your attitude makes a difference in your relationships with people.  It influences how we see others and it determines whether we lift others up or deflate them.  The right attitude allows us to learn from each person we meet, every one of which who has something to teach us;
9143.  Your attitude makes a difference in how you face challenges;
9144.  How do you go about changing your attitude: 1.  Evaluate your present attitude.  Mindfulness and awareness are key to improving an attitude that desperately needs changing; 2.  Have a desire to change.  No choice will determine the success of your attitude change more than desiring to change; 3.  Change your attitude by changing your thoughts.  Attitudes are nothing more than habits of thought; 4.  Manage your attitude daily.  Maintaining the right attitude is easier than regaining it.  As the great John Wooden said, “Things turn out the best for people who make the best of the way things turn out;” and 5.  Take responsibility for your attitude, which is totally in your control.  You can’t control the weather, but you can control the atmosphere of your mind;
9145.  The only way to achieve meaning and a sense of importance in one’s life is through a rejection of alternatives, a narrowing of freedom, a choice of commitment to one place, one belief or one person;
9146.  Travel is a fantastic self-development tool because it extricates you from the values of your culture and shows you that another society can live with entirely different values and still function and not hate themselves.  This exposure to different cultural values and metrics then forces you to reexamine what seems obvious in your own life and to consider that perhaps it’s not necessarily the best way to live;
9147.  We need to reject something otherwise we stand for nothing.  If nothing is better or more desirable than anything else then we are empty and our lives are meaningless.  We are without values and, therefore, live our life without any purpose;
9148.  The avoidance of rejection (both giving and receiving it) is often sold to us as a way to make ourselves feel better.  But avoiding rejection gives us short-term pleasure by making us rudderless and directionless in the long term;
9149.  In order to get a(n) accurate/good reading, you should put more than just the tip of the meat thermometer (probe) in (the meat);
9150.  The act of choosing a value for yourself requires rejecting alternative values;

No comments:

Post a Comment