Little Victories: Everyday Hero.

“Decide the type of person you want to be. Prove it to yourself with small wins.” James Clear puts it clearly & succinctly.

  • Life is challenging/difficult/painful. End of. The alternative is to be dead. All of those dead folks you once knew, are free of this turmoil now. They’d rather be here, suffering like you are. Guaranteed. Elvis would swap being dead to be in your current “suffering”.
  • Attempting to minimise your suffering by staying in your Comfort Zone is self destructive in the medium & long term.
  • Aim to be Antifragile.
  • Time flies, but you are the Pilot.
  • Take control, starting with your thoughts & self talk.
  • Remove the toxic people from your life. You are the average of the 5 folks you spend most time with, find some good ‘uns, treasure them & let them know.
  • Thoughts & feelings follow actions. So move.
  • Take great pleasure in a series of tiny wins throughout your day. It’s you vs YOU. +1 or -1. Every decision is a +1, “This is going to make me better”, or a -1, “This is easy, feels comfy & good now, but is bad long term, & deep down I know it.” Short term pain, long term gain, or vice versa, you choose. These Little Victories will build your self esteem & self control “muscles”, this will grow like a snowball rolling downhill, you will feel able to take on greater challenges, expand your Comfort Zone further, and in time you will believe in yourself enuf to become the Everyday Hero you were born to be.
  • Guaranteed! Or your money back!

That’s it really.

Resources

Consistency is everything, without it, you are staying put, end of.

Miss ONE DAY and your chances of success drop by 5%, make it your life mission to gerrit done the next day.

Miss TWO DAYS and your chances of habit forming drop by 40%, see life mission above, even more so.

Miss THREE DAYS and likelihood of success drops by 90%, and you are basically starting from scratch.

  1. #1 START: WILL-POWER: What’s the #1 positive behaviour that I know WILL be beneficial for me to start doing?
  2. #1 STOP: WON’T-POWER: What’s the #1 negative behaviour no longer serving me that I know I need to stop doing?
  3. DO THOSE THINGS: Start doing the first. Stop doing the Second. Repeat! Ad infinitum, till you expire.

Do not be Arambhashura, a Hero in the Beginning. Like the mediocre majority. Drifting aimlessly towards death.

You are alive.
Soon enuf, you won’t be.
Be grateful for the gift of the present, but be a good friend to your Future Self.
+1 or -1? Your choice.
The fork in the road is always there in front of you, you have the knowledge, you can choose to start applying it any moment.
Non linear progress, fail well & often, & learn.

A programmer and writer who goes by Loopy, on the difference between preparing to do it and actually doing it:
“Things that aren’t doing the thing:
Preparing to do the thing isn’t doing the thing.
Scheduling time to do the thing isn’t doing the thing.
Making a to-do list for the thing isn’t doing the thing.
Telling people you’re going to do the thing isn’t doing the thing.
Messaging friends who may or may not be doing the thing isn’t doing the thing.
Writing a banger tweet about how you’re going to do the thing isn’t doing the thing.
Hating on yourself for not doing the thing isn’t doing the thing.
Hating on other people who have done the thing isn’t doing the thing.
Hating on the obstacles in the way of doing the thing isn’t doing the thing.
Fantasizing about all of the adoration you’ll receive once you do the thing isn’t doing the thing.
Reading about how to do the thing isn’t doing the thing.
Reading about how other people did the thing isn’t doing the thing.
Reading this essay isn’t doing the thing.
The only thing that is doing the thing is doing the thing.”

Aristotle says “Moral virtues, like crafts, are acquired by practice and habituation.”

“American and Norwegian researchers did a study to see what made babies improve at walking. They discovered that the key factor wasn’t height or weight or age or brain development or any other innate trait but rather (surprise!) the amount of time they spent firing their circuits, trying to walk. However well this finding might support our thesis, its real use is to paint a vivid picture of what deep practice feels like. It’s the feeling, in short, of being a staggering baby, of intensely, clumsily lurching toward a goal and toppling over. It’s a wobbly, discomfiting sensation that any sensible person would instinctively seek to avoid. Yet the longer the babies remained in that state—the more willing they were to endure it, and to permit themselves to fail—the more myelin they built, and the more skill they earned. The staggering babies embody the deepest truth about deep practice: to get good, it’s helpful to be willing, even enthusiastic, about being bad. Baby steps are the royal road to skill.” Daniel Coyle.

In all things, be a baby, determined to learn to walk.

Optimal Living 101 – no email, no logins, nada. Just 4 hours of free, life-changing wisdom. “A brilliant mix of ancient wisdom and modern day science that I’d always been seeking, even if I didn’t know it existed.”

Top 10 Philosophers notes – Again, free & gratis (Web based pdf). Or listenable HERE.