Don’t just age. Progress. Improve. Learn. Apply. Achieve. Start now. Think. Act. The time will pass anyway. May as well get producing in the meantime. Don’t just age. Age with progress.
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Self-Discipline Is Key
It feels easier in the moment not to be disciplined. You can shrug it off. Believe that you will do it later. You think you’ll get back on it again later in the week.
After a few weeks of great daily self-discipline will be the opposite. It’s harder in every moment. Though it gets easier with practice. But it is definitely harder to start. But the longer term benefits are great. If for no other reason than you can count on yourself to achieve when you say you will.
Usually though, we find other things in our way and don’t get back to it. A few weeks of that and we won’t feel so good about ourselves. It’s self-inflicted though.
If you find it hard to count on you, who else can? But you have the control to change it all around. Only say things you are actually going to do. Don’t over-commit. Set timers to help keep you on track. Be pleased with each commitment you stick to. Those are powerful building blocks.
Self-discipline is key. And that key will unlock all the doors you can imagine.
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CategoriesThink About It
Thought Process Or Auto-Pilot?
Are you on auto-pilot too often? I know it’s easier. But sometimes we need to re-evaluate how we think and how we are coming to the conclusions we do. Is it simply that we listen to our favourite news source or podcast? Do you just nod and agree?
Do you investigate the ideas of people who hold our might have different and even opposing views?
Are you giving these things thought or simply accepting a third party view? Try understanding what others are saying. You may agree more often than you think.
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What Am I Contributing To?
Before taking action, ask yourself this question. What am I contributing to? If everything goes well, what would it look like? However, if things go wrong, how could that end up? Do you need to take this action or is it simply a desire?
I will guess that we have all had moments, that in hindsight looked like we made a less beneficial decision. We can’t undo those but we can try to minimise them going forward.
Grabbing a pitchfork to join the mob is rarely a good idea. Not being able to admit that you were wrong on something, or that you misunderstood the detail, shows a lack of moral intelligence and possibly cowardice. It’s ok to admit you spoke too soon or didn’t wait to get accurate details, but even better is to have the patience to find out the relevant details first next time.
What am I contributing to? We don’t always know in advance but when we do begin to see the adverse effects of our actions or words, we should straighten things out very quickly.
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Mindsets Are The Most Divisive
Think about this calmly without any bias and preconceptions. A couple of the words in the subject line may have already sent you in one direction or another. That is down to your mindset. The words did not involve your gender, sex, skin color, political affiliation or level of credentialed education.
Your current mindset, with its lens for every single possible topic, will determine which group you will self-categorise with. For example, someone with a slightly conservative philosophy will really challenge some people’s thought process, particularly if they also happen to have black skin, prefer same sex relationships, or both.
Everything I’ve written will be run through your mindset and you will decide whether you agree or disagree and if you like the points or not. I could know nothing about your background or affiliations, but your response to the above ideas will tell me a lot about how you think. Can you see things for what they are, or do you look through a particular lens first? That lens highlights or magnifies the bias in your mindset.
To be a good critical thinker we need to discover our own biases and minimise or eliminate them. If you look and listen carefully, you may find that people aren’t so bothered by the things you think they are but rather by different mindsets. And mindsets are the most divisive.
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Lazy Or Lacking Purpose?
It can be easy to say we are lazy or observe others and come to that conclusion. We become unwilling to work or use our energy when we don’t have a clear goal or outcome in mind.
You might feel lazy when you have competing deadlines. It can be easier to curl up on the sofa and hope they disappear. Or go for walks, lunch with friends or to the pub – whatever distraction we prefer. It can feel all too hard. So, we just avoid the whole thing.
Although this can be one way to deal with things, we should edge toward greater discipline. Do one thing to move the situation forward. Make that phone call, write a few lines or add some context for someone. Just the idea of getting started can propel you to keep going. Then, once you are 10 minutes in, it can be hard to stop because you are so engaged in the process and can see the outcome.
Are you lazy or lacking purpose? I would suggest we all have a lazy tendency if we allow it. However, if we set an exciting goal to pursue, we will find that purpose propelling us to greater heights. When you are driven by enthusiasm for you objective, you need less discipline. You can simply be obsessed.
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It’s Hard To Change
Habits and patterns of behaviour can be incredibly difficult to change. Our environment has adapted to make the habits easier. In addition, our desire for familiarity adds to the challenge of changing. Finally, our self-image will stop us if the new habit is not in aligment with how we see ourselves.
Three things to make it easier to change are as follows:
- Adjust your environment to make the new habit easier and the old habit harder. For example, have all your clothes ready by your bed to go exercise when you wake up. Also, put your alarm on the other side of the room so you have to get out of bed to shut it off (and therefore not hit snooze and roll over). Put the volume high too so you need to go shut it off or turn it down.
- Be patient and know that it will take days, weeks and months to get familiar and comfortable with this new routine. The greater familiarity and better environment will make it all seem easier.
- Remind yourself daily, 10 times per day or more, that you are this new type of person. You could say, ‘I am an early morning person.’ You could add, ‘I am a fit and healthy person.’ By saying the ‘I am’ statements many times per day, while also doing steps 1 & 2, you will reinforce this new personality you are becoming. This will improve the chances of your mind and body accepting this new way of being and thriving with it.
Yes, it’s hard to change, but you can make it easier on yourself and increase your probability of success. Start today!
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Why Choose Anger?
You can choose your focus. Sure, different thoughts, good, bad and odd, come into your mind. However, you get to choose which ones you will focus on or hold onto.
You don’t have to swing at every pitch. You can let a few thoughts go by. Generate good thoughts. Let poor thoughts pass on by.
If you’re not doing this, ask yourself why. Do you enjoy the intensity of feeling? Are you keen to solve everyone else’s problems? All 8 billion people need you to help them?
There might be injustices in the world but your anger won’t reverse them. If you want to calmly write letters, lobby people with power to change things or put forward sensible arguments, then do it.
Try to stay away from the outrage, the anger, the poor thinking and the cherry-picked opinions and facts that keep you as a prisoner in that state of mind.
From what I can tell, the vast majority of issues come from a few people who have made poor decisions in life or else from misunderstandings or accidents. We would do better to reduce our involvement where accidents are more likely to occur. Also, take the time to understand a situation very well, from all sides, before being an outraged judge of it. Finally, volunteer to help kids and youth to improve their thinking and their decision making so they grow up to be good and useful members of society rather then destructive ones.
Redirect that powerful energy. Why choose anger? Especially when you can choose positive impact!
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Defending The Cause
It is important to stand firm for your beliefs. Defending the cause is an important tradition. But when should we learn to take the momentum and build something better rather than fight against something that is losing power, quite negative and improving the lives of every few people?
Fighting for worker’s rights in the Industrial Age was probably a useful battle. With so many laws and protections for workers now, we may possibly be getting diminishing returns by fighting against management.
Perhaps looking forward and educating and empowering workers would be better for them. Help them learn while taking more responsibility and accountability. Helping them become better, stronger and more independent would be a real benefit to them. It may work better than only protecting them.
Remember that when we are protecting some, we do not need to attack others. Uplift those that can benefit from it rather than being anti things that are improving already.
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