Tag: uncomfortable

Filtering

Post author By jrlsage
Post date May 20, 2016

Pick one

Take in a lot, make tiny mistakes, and improve our heuristics for filtering. This is uncomfortable.
Take in very little, get risk-averse, and don’t develop systems. This is comfortable.

The former option makes sure you can tear little holes in any ideological bubble. The latter leaves you trapped.

Experience is a choice until it isn’t. Life comes at you fast, and events like layoffs and death often leave us to remember the risks we didn’t take, instead of the comfort we had when we didn’t.

Tags black swan, comfortable, decide, heuristics, Improvement, uncomfortable

Blog Post

We Agonized Over Nothing, And We Did the Next Time; Too

Post author By jrlsage
Post date April 17, 2016

Make a choice

If you want to grow, start deciding.

When you start making those decisions, get a journal and write them down.

We agonized over wrong and right, the future, the past, and its potential. The odd thing is, in 99% of our decisions, none of those things mattered. What mattered was follow through and accountability.

It’s easy to fall into the “routine of comfort,” or the things that we do to feel OK. We all have a list, but for me, if I notice myself watching sports, diving in on Reddit, or perusing Facebook, then I am there. I am hiding, trying to avoid something. That’s failure.

We can’t avoid failure. But by avoiding follow through and accountability, we shrink our chances of growth.

Tags comfort, decision journal, decisions, failure, follow through, growth, uncomfortable

Blog Post

Taking The Initiative

Taking the initiative is hard. It is uncomfortable. It makes me wince.

I always think of the worst scenarios when I think of raising my hand. Is someone going to call on me and allow me to embarrass myself? Is the rest of the class going to laugh? Will they banish me in the prison in the basement (I get this ridiculous). None of these things have ever happened to me when I raised my hand. In fact, the opposite generally happens. I usually answer something or pose a better question. If I don’t, then usually someone says something that gets me back into the right frame of mind. It’s generally a win-win, and I don’t need to worry about being jailed in some imaginary dungeon.

Many great journeys in life begin with a touch of uncomfortable.