Highlights from the Internet: Part 10
Below you'll find part 10 of my collection of highlights from the internet. I read and highlighted most of it in the Pocket app.
Raising Your Baseline
To really create an effective change, the old behavioral baseline must become unacceptable for you. In order to progress to a new baseline, you must eventually regard your old baseline as out of bounds and below standard, even if it still feels normal. This is a simple approach I’ve used repeatedly times for doing personal growth experiments and also for making long-term changes. To embrace the new, there must be some willingness to say: The old behavior is dead to me.
Why are you doing?
Whatever you decide, you need to optimize for that goal, and be willing to let go of the others.
If you want freedom, then own a business but delegate all the work. You won’t be learning or creating or giving as much as you could with a different strategy, but that’s OK. You know freedom is what you’re after.
But whatever you choose, brace yourself, because people are always going to tell you that you’re wrong.
That’s why you need to know why you’re doing what you’re doing. Know it in advance. Use it as your compass and optimize your life around it. Let the other goals be secondary so that when those decision moments come, you can choose the value that you already know matters most to you.
Redefining Your Problems
Not all problem definitions are equally interesting or motivating to solve. If you find a problem definition dreadfully demotivating, don’t beat yourself up for not being motivated or for procrastinating too much. Question how you’re defining the problem to begin with. You’re probably using a definition you’ve inherited from someone else. Be flexible enough to rewrite the problem – many different ways.
Consider a problem where you’ve been stuck for a while. Brainstorm at least a few dozen ways to redefine the problem definition. Then consider which of those other problems interests you more than your original definition. Don’t be a dunce afterwards by going back to your original frame, as if you’re permanently caged there. Actually switch frames and genuinely invest in solving one of those other problems.
Work on the problems that fascinate you. Work on the problems that you enjoy solving. Work on problems because you love the character-building effects. Don’t deal in problems that you dislike or dread – that’s just lame. You’re smarter and more creative than that.
Curiosity Goals
A goal is a decision to take action in a particular direction. There’s no requirement that you must like the outcome. There’s no requirement that you must be able to predict the results. You don’t have to be excited about the benefits. You can actually just be curious to see how pursuing the goal affects you. That is sufficient motivation to pursue and accomplish a variety of goals.
Have you ever been curious about what it would be like to start your own business? Me too. That’s one reason I did it. I wanted to know what it was like. That alone is a good enough reason to do it.
Ever been curious what it’s like to take a month off and go travel? That’s reason enough.
If you’re curious about a goal or experience, let that be reason enough to explore it. You don’t have to be reckless. You can still make rational and intelligent choices regarding what to explore. But do accept that rational argument that you’ll learn more by doing than by standing on the sidelines.
Accept that your mind and your character are trained and developed by experience. Whenever you pursue a goal for curiosity’s sake, another reason you’re pursuing it is for character growth. Exploration creates expansion.
Do a quick review of your current goals. Which goals are curiosity-based rather than results-based? Would you like to consider adding at least one new goal purely because you’re curious about it? Give yourself permission to do that.
Early Work
It will be easier to try out a risky project if you think of it as a way to learn and not just as a way to make something. Then even if the project truly is a failure, you'll still have gained by it.
Treat new things as experiments. That way there's no such thing as failing, since you learn something no matter what. You treat it like an experiment in the sense that if it really rules something out, you give up and move on, but if there's some way to vary it to make it work better, go ahead and do that
Learnable Programming
Traditional visual environments visualize the code. They visualize static structure. But that's not what we need to understand. We need to understand what the code is doing.
Visualize data, not code. Dynamic behavior, not static structure.
Why You Should Make a Video in Your Bathrobe
So don’t fuss over trying to provide value when you begin. Focus instead on shedding your fear, anxiety, and discomfort with the medium. The value will come through more strongly as you do that.
Whatever makes you feel self-conscious, do exactly that.
Whatever makes you feel like hiding, lean into expressing yourself.
Remember that this is just a training phase. You don’t have to live this way all the time. Just do it while you’re deliberately training through the resistance. You can even split that into multiple phases with breaks in between.
You’re not the true judge of the value you provide. Other people will receive value in ways you cannot predict. The crappiest video imaginable can still provide plenty of value to people in ways you wouldn’t expect. Let others decide if they’ll watch past the first few seconds. Don’t deprive them of the opportunity to soak up some of your light.
The Point of No Return
The point of no return is really a decision. It’s when you decide to progress your story, and you also decide that there’s no going back. The dead-end job is done. The dead-end relationship is over. The dead-end health habits are finished. The dead-end relationship with money must die.
Other people will see your outer journey, but these decisions have more to do with your inner journey. You don’t just decide to leave your job for surface reasons. You decide that you’re no longer going to be the timid and needy person who will show up for a job that isn’t right for you. You’re not going to keep being the coward who will continue taking orders from a misguided boss. You’re not going to be the drone who works for a company for misaligned values. It’s time to construct a new identity that fits who you’ve ready to become.
A real decision is harder than action. A real decision progresses you into Act 2 of your story. You’ll know when you’ve made the decision because you’ll feel this deep acceptance – and often even some sorrow – that Act 1 is finally over and done with.
Don’t wait for an external catalyst to get your story moving forward. Invite or create whatever catalyst you need to progress your story. Don’t keep living as an Act 1 character when you’re ready for Act 2.
Lying
While you could just shift to direct honesty, which may advance your storyline, you could also think about the big picture of why you’re lying and in what situations. If lying is often situational, why are you remaining loyal to those situations?
What would it be like to work at a company where truthfulness was respected and rewarded?
What would it be like to be in a relationship with someone where you could be fully honesty about all your kinky desires because your partner is open to hearing that and exploring with you?
What would it be like if you built a social circle where you feel free to express what you actually think and feel?
A few things I've learned about email marketing
Sell to people who buy based on value, decide what to build by researching your audience, market by teaching people helpful things
How to Overcome Your Feelings of Neediness
In any area of life where you feel needy, ask yourself this key question:
What would it take to objectively create measurable and observable abundance in this particular area, so it would be really difficult to feel any further neediness?
Also ask:
What would it take to solve the neediness problem for life, permanently?
Where in your life do you want certainty, confidence, and abundance? Start by convincing your brain that you’re 100% all-in committed to reaching a certain level of abundance and moving beyond scarcity. You can do this in any area of life: money, relationships, professional achievement, creative self-expression, lifestyle, and more.
Be willing to do what feels awkward, uncomfortable, and scary. That’s all part of doing whatever it takes.
If awkwardness is enough to stop you, you’ve lost. If discomfort is enough to stop you, you’ve lost. If fear is enough to stop you, you’ve lost.
Your path to abundance may very well take you through awkward, uncomfortable, and scary experiences. Be willing to experience all of that. Surrender to that possibility. Make it clear to your brain that you won’t use those as excuses to quit. Then create some real evidence by deliberately doing something awkward, uncomfortable, or scary. Prove that you’re serious.
Psychologische vitamines voor groei
Je kan het voor jezelf even nagaan: in welke omgeving voel jij je goed? Wanneer heb je het gevoel dat je jezelf kan ontplooien en kan ontwikkelen? Over verschillende culturen heen, blijken mensen op deze vragen dezelfde antwoorden te geven. Ze hebben behoefte aan een omgeving waarin ze zich verbonden weten met anderen, waarin ze zichzelf kunnen zijn en waarin ze zich bekwaam voelen om hun dagelijkse activiteiten uit te voeren. Een omgeving die tegemoet komt aan de behoeftes aan Autonomie, relationele verBondenheid en Competentie (te onthouden via het acroniem ABC) versterkt dus de groei.
Zelfzorg voor ouders is dan ook essentieel. Een ouder die goed voor zichzelf zorgt investeert dus in activiteiten waarin deze vitamines in sterkere mate worden voldaan. Dergelijke ouders zoeken activiteiten uit die zij zelf leuk en waardevol vinden (autonomie), ze voeren activiteiten uit waarin zij zelf goed zijn of iets uit kunnen bijleren (competentie), of ze knopen een goed gesprek aan met anderen (verbondenheid).
Pleasure Is Not Addictive
So the solution to addiction is more courage? Or more tolerance for the unpleasant?
The solution is more willingness to engage with the unpleasant. More desire to deal with the ugliness of life. More desire to go into the muck.
Addiction is a solution to a problem: How can I avoid dealing with life’s greatest challenges?
Answer: I can repeatedly lose myself in a recurring loop of succumbing to, resisting, and then overcoming an addiction. I can turn that endless cycle into my demon, so all scarier demons can be ignored indefinitely.
How do you overcome an addiction?
Identify and face the bigger shame, and the addiction will crack. Be willing to face, reframe, and deal with whatever you’re avoiding. Then you won’t need to hide out in the cozy corner of addiction and recovery.
When the urge to engage with an addiction arises, ask: What am I avoiding? Why must I avoid it? What’s so scary about it? How can I face it now? How is this an invitation to growth and beauty?
That will help. Face the difficult and the frightening, and addictions will no longer serve as escapes. Look for the beauty behind your fear and shame.
Your Exploration Baseline
It’s especially wise to raise your baselines to the point where your everyday experience includes appreciation. A good question to ask yourself is: Do I appreciate my baseline in this area of life?
If you don’t like your baseline that much, why are you still there? Maybe it’s time to stop framing it as your current default. Be willing to drop a baseline that isn’t serving you well. A good baseline is a jumping-off point for further exploration, but it’s also a decent place to hang out between experiments.
Making Unpopular Decisions
If you don’t take action to explore what keeps churning in your mind year after year, you’re sentencing your future self to more of the same.
You can’t just dream. You have to act on those dreams. Otherwise your dreams will eventually abandon you, and they’ll go to someone else, but they will leave behind just enough energy to haunt you for decades. Someone else will get to experience the results of action. You’ll get to experience the results of if only.