Thursday, January 21, 2016

Right this moment, what do you want more than anything else in the world?



[–]kotkaiser 536 points  
A goal in life.
[–]gotthelowdown 416 points  
A goal in life.
I'll say right upfront that it's okay to not have all the answers; and that it's okay to keep looking for answers. Here's some advice I've shared before.
This guide might be inspiring:
Should...should I quit my job today?
Not immediately, no. If you have bills, etc., that would be financially irresponsible.
But if you are not happy, you can start making plans. Saving money, looking for other jobs, think about other places you'd rather live in, etc. I like to think of your war chest as a "freedom fund," that will give you enough to quit your job and move somewhere else to find a better job. Others call it, "Fuck You" money, as in having enough money to say that to your boss when you quit (I don't recommend burning bridges though. References help you land jobs).
The first step is to check in with yourself. Do this in a quiet place alone. Traveling by yourself can also do wonders for removing the external voices telling you what to do with your life (parents, family, friends, co-workers, etc.). You don't even necessarily have to leave the country either, although that's the closest thing to giving your mind a reboot. Just go somewhere by yourself. Like a park or the library.
Ask yourself who you are, what you want and big questions like that. That can feel intimidating and difficult though, if you haven't been alone for a while and have competing voices in your head from the people around you.
Who do you admire? Could be someone you know. Could be a successful person you've read about. Who do you look at that makes you think, "Man, I'd love to do what that person is doing." Good! List that down. Keep finding more people who inspire you. If you read interviews of successful people, you'll often find they had an inspiring role model. Sometimes they had a relationship with that "mentor," sometimes not. The important thing was that it gave them a starting point.
One caveat: it's easy to become seduced by someone's passion, and mistakenly think, "If I do the same job/career/business, I'll be as happy too!" Do you actually like the work itself, without getting interviewed on TV or being on magazine covers? This is because most people toil in obscurity.
A great fun exercise is to imagine a future scenario of your perfect day. Let's say it's five years from now. There's a great quote by Bill Gates that goes like, "We overestimate what we can accomplish in one day, but underestimate how much we can accomplish in one year." So in five years you could go far.
The key thing is to let your imagination go wild, and silence the doubting voice that says, "That will never happen."
Think of it like a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book.
What's your perfect day?
--You wake up. What kind of place do you live in? Log cabin in the forest? Modern loft in the middle of a bustling city? Villa by the beach?
--Where is your home? What city?
--You go to work. Where's your office? Maybe it's downtown, or maybe it's down the hall from your bedroom?
--There are photos on your office wall. Who are in the pictures with you? Friends? Family? Celebrities? Leaders in your industry? Attractive girlfriends? (or boyfriends, I'm not judging).
--There are photos of places you've been. Where are they? Cities? Jungles? Art galleries? Bungee jumping? Wine tasting? What experiences have you had you that you wanted to remember? (as your future self, not now).
--You check your e-mail. What kind of e-mails are in your inbox that make you smile? Happy customers who love your product? Fan letters saying how much they love your book/music/other creations?
--You get phone calls. Who's on the other end of the line? A businessperson with a multimillion-dollar deal to offer you? A reporter to interview you about your new project? A hot sexy person asking you out on a date? The answers are for your eyes only, and you get to decide how it's rated :)
--You get to work. What are you doing? Writing a book? Writing a business plan? Doing a Skype call with a bigshot? Leading a meeting?
The next thing would be to start working backward. What steps did you take to get to that perfect day?
For example, I did this exercise with a friend who's a writer. His novel is about a character running in a marathon.
--Perfect day: seeing the title of his novel on The New York Times bestseller list in the newspaper.
Starting to work backward, what things would have led to that moment?
--He was interviewed on national TV about his book. Gave him instant wide publicity and boosted sales.
--He had earlier been mentioned in a national newspaper article about running. A TV producer read the article, thought it was an interesting angle for a story, and called him up to fly to Burbank for an interview.
--My friend had set up Google Alerts to notify of him of any news stories about running. He built a list of reporters who'd written articles on the topic. He also signed up for Help A Reporter Out (HARO), where journalists seek sources for their articles.
Whenever he saw a chance to relate his novel to an upcoming story, he'd get in touch and offer himself as a source or someone who could provide some quotes. Most were not interested, but he kept trying. Eventually, he answered a posting on HARO by a reporter who was looking for people to interview for a story about running. He sent an e-mail as soon as he saw the posting, and then they e-mailed questions and answers back and forth, and used some of his quotes in the article. That started the ball rolling.
--Another option is to make a set of lists of the things you want.
Use these categories:
Have: Material things: Mansion, sports car, etc. And hey, maybe the things you want are way cheaper. What matters is that you want it, not what you're told to want. Hint: go for tools that will help you with your hobbies, which will lead to . . .
Do: Occupation and hobbies: Write a novel, paint art, fly in a wingsuit (that shit is so badass!)
Be: A good friend, a donor to worthy causes, a supporter for things you believe in, a volunteer to improve other people's lives somehow, etc.
Important: We'd all like to believe we're high-minded, evolved beings and jump straight to the "Be" goals, but you really need all three to be happy. Don't feel guilty about having desires. This is for you, so it's okay to be a bit selfish.
A similar way to think about these are pleasure (have), passion (do) and purpose (be) goals.
Once you have your list, get on Google and do the most fun research you'll ever do. What resources are out there that can help you get those things?
There's something about writing down ideas, goals and action plans that make them more real. I type in Evernote and still use a pen and legal pad. It's like "programming" your subconscious.
Writing will clarify your vision. As a result, you see opportunities you would have missed if you weren't clear about your intentions and what you wanted.
You create this weird kind of good luck. Don't be surprised if you write down an idea, then stumble across the perfect person, event, book or other resource that helps you move in the direction you wanted. Goals take away the blindness to all the opportunities around you.
If you'd like to do a similar exercise, but with a video of someone guiding you along the way, you can watch this:
More resources:
Also good: Dan Pink: The puzzle of motivation. What things make people happy while working? Pink breaks it down.
If you want to dive deep: The Overjustification Effect. Does getting paid to do what you love make you happy? Not necessarily, as this article explains.
The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Achor is a great book. He makes a convincing case that it's not "you become successful, then get happy." Instead, it's the reverse: you get happy, then become successful. He backs it with a lot of research and studies.
To look at the big picture, tie in how your actions relate to your goals. There are "push" goals and "pull" goals.
Push goals are about avoiding pain, e.g. "I don't want to struggle to pay bills for the rest of my life," "I don't want to live with my parents forever," "I don't want to be working retail or fast-food when I'm 50" "I don't want to prove my ex-girlfriend/ex-boyfriend/mother/father right about calling me a failure." The good thing about push goals is they're great for getting started. The downside is sometimes they're not enough to get you through when things get tough.
That's when you need pull goals stay motivated. Pull goals are about moving toward pleasure, e.g. "I want work in a big nice office talking to important people every day," "I want to be able to live in [insert your dream location]" "I want to be surrounded by cool, motivated people," "I want to be a successful person" (whatever success looks like to you). You'll want to be more specific. Pull goals are about keeping your eyes on the prize. So when things get tough, you can tell yourself, "This will all be worth it when I [achieve result]."
These are just examples. Write down push and pull goals that resonate with you personally. If you're properly motivated, you will invent tricks and tactics that will get you where you want to go.
Good luck.
[–]KaneDewey 237 points  
Motivation.
I'm tired of doing nothing with my life. I want to work out, i want to be creative. But as soon as i get home after work...reddit happen.
[–]Beyonce_Fanatic[S] 49 points  
My wife has a million willpower and I have 5. I hate her sometimes because she's like "I should work out. Guess I will."
[–]gotthelowdown 74 points  
My wife has a million willpower and I have 5.
A breakthrough for me was when I read a book that said to distrust willpower, because it runs out quickly and exhausts you. The book was The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Achor.
Instead, the book recommended to harness the far superior power of laziness.
For good habits: re-arrange your environment so that the good habit is easier to do, and the bad habit is harder to do. Example: a guy who wanted to get into morning jogging would go to sleep in his running clothes, so he wouldn't have to deal with putting them on when he woke up.
For bad habits: the reverse. Make the bad habit harder to do, or impossible. The book talked about "The 90-Second Rule," as in make that bad habit take 90 seconds longer to do, because by that time most of us would give up.
An extreme example would be that woman in the movie Confessions of a Shopaholic who froze her credit card in a block of ice to stop over-spending.
Make the good habit the path of least resistance.
For example, if you want to save money, set up some kind of direct deposit or automatic investment program. You don't have to make the decision on every paycheck to put in money; the bank or your employer does it all for you. This TED Talk explains it further: Shlomo Benartzi: Saving for Tomorrow, Tomorrow.
What I like about this approach is that you only have to summon the willpower once, the first time. Then laziness and inertia take over and will naturally pull you to do the good habit.
An example of this was a guy who wanted to learn the play the guitar. The problem was, the guitar was in his bedroom closet. When he came home from work, it was easier to watch TV in the living room.
He took the batteries out of the remote control and buried them in the bottom drawer of his bedroom, where he would have to bend down low and dig through all his socks.
Then he bought a cheap guitar stand and set up his guitar right next to his couch. For the first week afterwards he would:
  • Sit down at the couch.
  • Try to turn on the TV with the remote.
  • Remember he took out the batteries and curse himself.
  • Decide it was too much work to get up from the couch and get the batteries.
  • Pick up the guitar next to his couch and start practicing chords.
In six months, he was playing the guitar. These ideas were taken from the book The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Achor. Great book, and that's only from one chapter.
Another contrarian approach I read about was the author A.J. Jacobs who harnessed hatred to break a bad habit:
What is your favorite snack?
Dried mangoes. They have the veneer of being healthy, but they’re really just orange-colored sugar. During my health project, I tried several methods to kick the dried-mango habit. One of the more effective: I had my wife write a check to a horrible organization—I believe it was the American Nazi Party—and had her promise to mail it in if I ate another dried mango. The thought of her mailing the check was so repulsive I stopped eating the mangoes cold.
You can get creative. If I fail, I have to buy a case of beer for the biggest asshole I know. I give up my Xbox/Playstation/whatever to a friend for a week. Of if you're shy, if you lose you have to ask out the hottest, most out-of-your-league girl you know on a date (maybe it will "backfire" and you'll get a date, score!). The more painful, the better.
Read The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg for more great advice. Especially his concept of Cue > Routine > Reward.
Good luck.



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