Tuesday, March 23, 2010

How to Finish What You Have Started

 
 

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Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/muffmuff/ / CC BY-ND 2.0

Simply getting up from the chair, stopping all the theorizing and getting started is one of the biggest issues I believe people face. But to keep going until something is finished can also be a big issue (it has certainly been so at times for me at least).

I have however found a few solutions that work for me and help me to reach the finish line. Feel free to chime in with your own solutions that work for you in the comments.

Let go of perfectionism.

This has been a pretty big issue for me in the past. You want to polish everything until it is "perfect". The problem is just that such thinking often leads to many things not ever being finished.

So you have to find a balance for yourself where you do good work and don't slack off but at the same time don't get lost in trying to improve and polish something too much.

I have found that balance through experience.

It is also very important to be aware that nothing will ever be perfect. Striving for perfection can be pretty dangerous. Because you will never feel like you are good enough.

You have set the bar at an inhuman level. And so your self esteem stays low even though your results may be very good.

So just focus on gradually being more consistent instead trying to be perfect.

Realize that good enough is good enough. And that goes both for your work and for you.

Set a deadline.

A few months ago, I set a deadline for when my ebook should be finished. I had realized that just working on it and releasing it when it was done would not work. Because I could always find stuff to add to it. So I had to set a deadline. Sure, I still missed it by a few days but finally I did the last 30 percent of the work and was done with it.

Setting a deadline gave me a kick in the butt and it is generally good way to help you to let go of a need to polish things a bit too much.

Limit yourself in all kinds of ways.

The last part of a project or a task can often feel pretty hard and it's easy to get lost in procrastination. By setting limits for how often you check email each day, how much time you spend on social networks and forums, how much time you take to make small everyday decisions you can over a month or two develop these things into habits that run automatically most of the time.

By incorporating limits like these into your lifestyle you are less likely to get distracted during the last part of the work and you can keep
your eye on what's important.

Make it light, don't create a heavy cloud of drama, problems and complications in your mind.

Realize that much of this is in your head. Your perspective determines to a large degree what you see.

Your relationships to what you want to achieve are – just like your relationships to people – to a large extent just in your head. Try thinking that something is easy and simple instead of "heavy" and complicated and your perception of that external thing you want to achieve tends to change too. Experiment and find healthy and effective relationships to what you want to achieve instead of just seeing something like many people may do.

Bring awareness to you own thought patterns by asking yourself questions like:

"Honestly, am I overcomplicating this?" and
"What is the simplest and most straightforward solution to my problem?"

If you enjoyed this article, please share it on Stumbleupon and Twitter. Thank you very much! =P

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Copyright 2006-2010 Henrik Edberg.


 
 

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Sunday, March 21, 2010

How to Get to Know Yourself Better: 3 Great Tips

 
 

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"He who knows others is learned;
He who knows himself is wise."
Lao-tzu

Who are you? What is your daily and weekly life really about?

Those not always easy questions to answer. So today I'd like to share three tips that have helped me to get to know myself a bit better and to see my life more accurately.

1. What part of you do you see in them?

What we see in others is quite often what we see in ourselves. And what irritates us in people may be what we don't like in ourselves. What you judge in someone you are actually judging in yourself.

Therefore what you notice and what irritates you in others can teach you important things about yourself. Things you may not be aware of. In a way people can be like a mirror for you. A mirror that can help you to learn more about yourself, what you fear and how you may be fooling yourself.

So, what people generally irritate you? What do you often judge or criticize people for?

What can that tell you about you?

2. Do the unusual thing.

When faced with a choice in your daily life, step back for a minute and think. Then take the option that is and feels unusual for you.

If you often back down just don't for this one time. If you often get into arguments with people then just this one time don't and instead just let it go or treat the other person with kindness. Do the opposite of what you usually do and see what happens (while using common sense of course). Do something new and something you wouldn't expect from yourself.

This is a fun and great way to get new experiences and to learn things about the world and about yourself that you wouldn't if you kept going like you usually do. It's also a great way to be surprised about life as things often turn out more positively than in your fear filled daydreams if you just take action.

Getting stuck in the same old routine until it becomes a rut can suck the life out of you. Doing the unusual thing in small and big situations, no matter how it goes, is a great way to feel alive again and to reveal aspects of yourself that may have been hidden from you.

3. Journal.

Journaling is a fine way to get a more accurate picture of yourself and your life. A few ways that I have used journaling to get to know myself and my life are:

  • Journal about how you use your time. Just write down what you do during one day. Or during one week. Write down what you spend your time on and how much time you spend on each thing. You may, as me, be surprised about how much time you waste on procrastinating and pretty pointless busy work. Even if you may have an image of yourself as an effective person.
  • Journal about what you think. What do you think about during a normal day? Or a week? Write it all down. By doing so you can find recurring patterns of thought such as fears or maybe that you spend a lot of time regretting what happened in the past. Or you may find that you are actually a more positive person than you may think. This is a really interesting exercise because it can help you spot both positive things and negative things about yourself and just how accurate your current image of yourself is. You'll probably run into some surprises.
  • Journal about what you eat. I used this to lose weight. If you want to lose weight you have to consume less calories that you use. So how do you know what to eat and how much? You got to monitor it in some way. I used the free and very simple Fitday.com to monitor what I eat during the day. This is essential stuff. Because the three normal and most of the time actually pretty healthy meals I ate in the past consisted of the same amount of calories I used during the day. So little progress was made. To keep things within effective and healthy limits I think it's important to monitor what you do. But not to get obsessed about these things though. The main point is to keep an eye on what you are actually doing instead of guesstimating a whole lot.

If you enjoyed this article, please share it on Stumbleupon and Twitter. Thank you very much! =)

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Copyright 2006-2010 Henrik Edberg.


 
 

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Tuesday, March 9, 2010

p s s s s t ! :

 
 

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Are These 3 Odd but Common Obstacles Standing in the Way of Your Success?

 
 

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"Obstacles don't have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don't turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it."
Michael Jordan

Basics such as motivation, setting goals and taking action are vital to get the success you want in any area of life.

But there are also other factors that play a part. Inner and outer obstacles that can stand in your way and make things harder than they need to be.

Today I'd like to explore three such things and how you can overcome these obstacles and make success easier.

1. Drama.

Drama can be a bit annoying. Both when it pops up in me and in other people. It's annoying because it's pointless, counterproductive and at the same time can be addictive.

When you are in drama-mode you make mountains out of molehills. You construct elaborate and huge problems based on some little thing that is often misinterpreted in dramatic and negative fashion to ignite the drama.

The drama in your mind can steal so much energy and time from you. So why do we do it?

Well, frankly I think it is sometimes just because people are under stimulated. Nothing much fun happens in the daily life. There are no real exciting goals to work towards.

The drama can not only add spice to your life but also be emotionally addictive. It brings you attention from other people. Instead of doing something that is actually hard and gaining admiration and attention that way it's easier to just create drama.

So what do you do to decrease the drama within yourself? The answers are already above. You get a life and fill it with doing things that are important and fulfilling for you. You remain aware in your daily life so that when you are creating drama you can tell yourself that such thinking is silly and will just make everything seem bigger than it is and thereby make it harder to take action. And the less you accept drama from yourself, the less you will accept or be rattled by drama from other people.

By doing that you will realize that things are often simpler than you may think and that few things are that big of a deal really. You'll be cooler and more levelheaded than you used to and you'll focus on working on what you want. Because in the end that is more fun and fulfilling than creating drama to fill a void.

2. Small invisible barriers.

Why don't people get regular exercise? One invisible barrier that I know comes up again and again is simply that they have to get to the gym. That takes effort. You have to get up from your couch, pack your gym bag and perhaps take a bus or drive to get there. And then you have to ride/drive home again.

After a long day at work or in school it's very easy to go: "Eh, I'll do that tomorrow instead" and remain on the couch.

And so you may get to the gym once every week instead of three times a week like you were planning on back during the holidays.

So you need to find ways to reduce or remove those barriers. I do my workouts right here at home. I lift weights and I do body weight exercises on my living room floor. This has eliminated that invisible gym barrier and helped me to be very consistent and work out three times a week.
Other ways to reduce the barrier would perhaps be to get exercise by going out running or going out biking. This will at least remove the hassle of getting to and from the gym.

Think about the small barriers that may be stopping you from doing things on a consistent basis. And find solutions.

Bonus tip: You can use small barriers to your advantage too. I did for instance remove the websites I got a bit too fond of from my bookmarks in Firefox. Now I have to type in the address or google for websites. This extra, very small barrier has helped me to check the websites far less than I used to. Oftentimes I forget to check them for many days and realize that they weren't really that important after all.

3. You fall back into old patterns, thoughts and behaviors.

It is easy to fall back into your old patterns. If you have, for instance, been looking for problems in different parts of your life for years but adopted a more optimistic outlook lately it is still easy to snap back into that old, familiar place. Sometimes you start looking for problems just out of habit.

This can be an obstacle. It can make things messy as you one day feel optimistic and the other day are not so optimistic anymore. Sure, there are natural fluctuations from day to day. But there are also things you can do to reinforce your new self image and to prevent the old stuff from coming up or holding you back.

  • Be aware during your day. When you become aware of a moment when you are slipping back into your old ways first accept that. Then let it go. This can help you let go of such things as soon as they appear and before they start to spiral and become bigger.
  • Review and reexamine your past. If you are falling back into worrying for example, look at your past. How many of your worries in the last 3 years have actually come into reality? Sit down and really go through this past period. You will probably realize how little of what you feared and worried about that has actually happened. By doing so you can start to release that old thought habit more easily when it pops up because it has been really inaccurate so far.
  • Get more experiences that support your new self image. This is the most important ingredient. To change and strengthen your new self image you mind needs proof. The proof is the experiences you have had. So if you really dive in and immerse yourself in something like fitness and work out every other/every day, read a lot about it all and are eating healthy stuff in a conscious way you change a lot about your day to day living environment. Expanding your comfort zone like this will be uncomfortable and a bit draining but it will quickly give you a lot of new experiences. This helps to you make a quicker change, gives you a stronger new self image and so you will more rarely slip back into those old thought patterns and behaviors.
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Copyright 2006-2010 Henrik Edberg.


 
 

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