Check your readiness

This process has 3 main parts: 

• Define the habit you want to form clearly and consistently;
• Condition it until it is relatively easy to maintain. 
• Maintain the habit by monitoring it. If you slip, push to reassert the habit quickly.

The best strategy for getting better at skills is deliberate practice. A good way to work on this is to divide it into 3: 

• Practice the skill. 
• Get timely feedback on how well you’re performing.
• Focus on your weak points with selective drills and constrained practice.

1. Core. Your purpose. It is sustained by two things: Having Meaning, and Forward Movement.
2. Support. What enables your goals. They can magnify the motivation core you have, or speed up the momentum that you build.
3. Surface. Any type of external recognition that might give you motivation.

• Analyze your current skill set, training level, and accomplishments to date. 
• Write down the aspects of the work you liked and what tasks or things you disliked. 
• Explore different career options. Investigate new fields, industries and potential careers. 
• Interview individuals who work at those types of jobs, or in fields of interest to you. 
• Look at growth opportunities, salaries, benefits, education level and then determine the job title to target.

• Use your transferable skills. You have acquired abilities from previous positions.
• Use your strengths. Incorporate your talents into any position you choose to go after.
• Get new skills. Study the industry you want to enter. Take some courses so you can more quickly enter the field.
• Many people prevent their own success. They find excuses, or blame others, for their own failures or mistakes instead of learning and improving from them.

Stop talking and start building! Put your thoughts into words, your words into pictures, and your pictures into prototypes.

Even a bad drawing is better than no drawing.

• Ban Things. Having constraints and parameters actually inspire innovation by forcing you to think dynamically and creatively.
• Get Out of the Office, even if it’s just to walk around the block.  Your mind will start connecting dots between what you see and the problems you left back at the office.
• Fuel Up on Creativity. Pick something creative to kick-start the morning. It will inspire your attitude and creativity throughout the day.
• Ask Yourself “What Would My Hero Do?”.  When you’re stumped with a problem you can’t make any headway on, ask yourself what they might do to solve it.

Talk honestly and openly to someone about your tendencies and how you’re working on getting better.

Ask them to tell you when you are being too fussy about something so you can think about it.

• Take note of when you’re ruminating and what triggers it until you can see your patterns and find ways to counteract them.
• Don't trust your first reaction when ruminating. Most of the time, it colors negatively your read of the situation.
• Seek a diversion to break the rumination cycle.
• Think positively: remembering your successes and times you tried new things helps you to not be avoidant of tasks you can’t do perfectly.

“One skill you want to master in this day and age we live in, if you want to have an extraordinary life, is the ability to learn rapidly.”

Be very selective in the skill you're trying to masker to avoid sabotaging your success:

• Make sure it's applicable: The perfect skill either solves a problem you have or scratches an itch you have.
• Be very specific: Specific goals are easier to pursue than vague counterparts. To set yourself up, narrow your skill down as much as possible. Ask what specific problem are you trying to solve, and find out what aspects you find most fascinating.
• Make sure you love the process, not just the outcome: Pick a skill where the road is as exciting as the outcome. Then plan out celebration points along the way.

It doesn’t mean that you should procrastinate all the time as you want. 

If you’re working on a project, for example, schedule an alarm every 2 hours and relax for about 15 minutes. But don’t spend all your free time on unproductive activities: do exercise for your body and for eyes, go for a walk or have a meal if it’s needed.

When you tell someone about your goal, you already feel partially satisfied because you start thinking that you’ve done some steps on the way towards your goal.

Plus, some of the people you tell might demotivate you.

One mistake people make when starting a hobby is picking something aspirational rather than something they enjoy. When you pick a hobby, stay true to what you enjoy. If you like cooking, try to take your current skills up a notch. If you like writing, try a fiction workshop.

If you want to try something totally new, start small. To hold yourself accountable, enlist friends in the effort.

A hobby is not a side hustle. It is important to develop hobbies outside of our economy with no financial motives attached.

Since a leisure pursuit is an outlet for stress, the pure pleasure of engaging in a hobby should be enough. A hobby not only helps to refuel us for a busy work life but also helps us to practice deep focus.

Chemistry is made up of subtle behaviors and dispositions that are felt by both parties equally.

It could be the way someone laughs at your jokes or the way they talk to you or help you. The absence of chemistry is normally displayed in the lack of emotional intensity.

High compatibility between people comes from the similarities in their lifestyles and values. 
Educated people usually date other educated people. Religious people usually date other religious people. People that are not compatible normally repel one another.