Tag: self-improvement

Two enemies

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There are two major factors that go against doing.

The first one is perfection. It’s a myth, something everybody aims for and nobody ever achieves. It is the resistance of having all your ducks in a row, and it delays delivering until a day that will never come.

The second one is analysis paralysis. At any time, we have access to a whole lot more information than what we need to make things happen, and this is unsettling to most. For every piece that tells you to do something, there is one that tells you to do the opposite, and so we lose focus, get distracted and, once again, delay delivery.

Habit and practice are the antidotes.

We have lost

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It’s not for us to judge what others do.

There are systems in place for that, and as individuals and human beings, we should not feel entitled to decide if other people’s behaviour is right or wrong.

Today we are given the illusion that we have this right, that it is necessary for us to let everybody know what we think about this or that event.

We have lost the capability to use others’ actions for self-reflection (and betterment), and we just cherry pick facts and happenings that confirm to ourselves and the world we are already better, smarter, braver, fairer.

We have lost the empathy to understand others behave like they do not because they are mean, devious, malicious, but just because they are facing our very same challenges, trying to make sense of a life that does not help them in the effort.

We have lost the courage necessary to look within ourselves first, to sit in front of a mirror and think about who we are and who we are not, the things we like and we want more of, the things we dislike and we want less of, and we drown in a continuous flow of superficial interactions that end up being shouts in the dark.

We have lost, and we are losing every day the sense of perspective, of what is important, of why should I care, or what is my role in all this.

We have lost, but we can take all of this back. It’s a choice we make every day.

Looking inside

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When you start looking inside, it’s possible that you won’t like what you find.

It’s a mixture of feelings, thoughts, ideas, memories, plans. Some land close to the picture of ourselves we have created culturally and relationally, some land quite far away. And that’s ok.

Looking inside, though, gives you quite a different perspective on the outside as well. When you begin to appreciate that deep down you are that insane and chaotic mixture, the good and the bad, the expected and the unexpected, the acceptable and the unacceptable, you realize that people around you are just the same. Their intentions are mixed, their feelings are mixed, their thoughts are mixed. They change trajectory within the same breath, they are insecure, scared, unprepared, variegated. Just like you are.

And so, what to do?

Most of us, spend their days fighting this, suppressing and denying what they do not recognize and cannot appreciate. Eventually, they bring the battle outside, because it’s easier to see the fault in others and pursue it relentlessly rather then acknowledging it in each one of us and make peace with it.

Few simply let go. They stop clinging, they stop holding on, they stop wanting to change, themselves and the others, they accept things for what they are, they navigate life to the best of their current possibility, making the most of each situation, realizing that it might not last (and in fact, it probably won’t).

Is this giving up, or is this the only way we have to actually change the world?

Not all the roads

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Annie Duke: We have this trade-off. We can kind of feel the pain in the moment, but the pain is going to be better in the long run, if we use it well, because we are going to be better decision makers in the long run, because we are experiencing the pain.

But the pain in the moment is pain. It doesn’t feel good. We have these competing problems: what’s best for me now, in terms of the way that I feel, versus what’s best for future me, in terms of how my life turns out. I think we can agree that the better my decisions, the more likely my life is going to turn out in a way that is good.

Shane Parris: It’s almost like the hindsight of your future-self becoming the foresight of your today-self.

Annie Duke: It’s getting the future version of you to get involved in the decisions of the present version of you.

From The Knowledge Project Podcast, ep. #37

When you make decisions in the moment, continuosly distracted by what is shinier, within reach, effortless, you often avoid negative feelings. And yet, you lose a little bit of who, deep down, you want to become.

What would your future-self say about what your today-self is doing?

Get that clear sooner rather than later, and accept the fact that not all the roads are going to take you where you aim. It will make it easier to accept defeats, say no, and be kind to yourself when some things will inevitably not pan out.

Presenting

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If you are preparing to deliver a presentation that matters (to you), consider the following.

Start with the audience and the change you’d like to see (even when you are just presenting results, you are still demanding a change). List them down somewhere and have them visible throughout the process.

Have the deck ready early, at least a week before the presentation.

Little text on a slide is always better than more. Always.

A list is a list even without a bullet.

Allow enough time to collect and implement the needed feedback. If you get feedback too close to the time you are supposed to deliver the presentation (<24hrs), be brave and disregard it.

Write a script for the key points and the transition between slides.

Rehearse the presentation multiple times, keeping the script at hand, but without reading it.

Few hours before the actual delivery, free your mind and take a break from the presentation. Do something else. The deck is ready by now, and so you are.

Good luck.