That rough pinging feeling in your chest?
- Write it down.
- Ask yourself why five times.
- Then write that down
Figure out an action plan, or move on.
Categories
Tag: think
Categories
Incentive is not Outcome
Wealth doesn’t necessarily mean paycheck
It means “wealth.”
Don’t confuse the outcome for the incentive.
Like the exercise I pointed to earlier, it is easy to mistake the first thing as the thing.
I previously discussed how the first thing done rarely matters; at its best, it is an opportunity to understand better what you are thinking.
Our brains struggle to find nuance until it is obvious.
It is easy to see outcomes as being the same as your incentives.
Example: if your incentive is gaining wealth, you could mistake the outcome of earning a paycheck and its later money as having reached your incentive. Remember that incentives are stimuli, encouraging factors, and motivations. They are not items.
Categories
Forward or Backward: Choose One
You can’t go forward and look backward at the same time.
There is a significant difference between forward and backward.
If you look back, you have to opportunity to see patterns. Since all of us are creatures of habit, discovering patterns is the first step to change.
If you go forward, you work to improving or emboldening those patterns.
When you try to do both at the same time, a problem occurs.
If you do, you heighten the chance of regret.
Regret doesn’t create lessons, only confusion.
Decide between backward and forward, and go.
Categories
Don’t Let Work Give You a Place to Hide
Our brains crave focus.
With focus, our brains work faster and better. We have limited energy. Focus enhances it.
The question is, can we focus and think?
No. Brains do one thing at a time. Our brains function as single objects.
How does that tie into our month’s theme, hiding?
We can subconsciously work to hide from our thoughts.
That all-consuming feeling you get focusing on a project? It is useful when you don’t want to think. Going into “workaholic” mode causes the world to fall away.
That is why it’s important to ask yourself if the work matters and if you’ve given yourself time to think.
It’s easy to hide.
Categories
Brain Filter
“Interesting” things are the only things that exist.
Our brain is a wonderful storyteller. It relies on narrative to communicate.
Don’t believe me? Here is a quick test: What did you have for breakfast last Sunday?
If that breakfast is in the middle of a story about something interesting, then you might recall what happened. If not, it is gone because it wasn’t interesting.
Two more things:
- We are usually the star of the show (self-preservation is the prime directive).
- Our brains don’t care for uninteresting things since it couldn’t comprehend them anyway. Our brain gets trillions of pieces of data per second and translates them on the fly to the “main things” we notice.
Something to think about the next time you say something that matters.
Note: A great book on this subject.
From the desk of Adam Thomas 