It’s OK to be uncomfortable

While overcoming your limitations, you’ll likely experience failure and you should scour those for lessons. 

It can be beneficial to find a role model and engage in some healthy imitation. Done well, it can give you some confidence.

You shouldn’t copy everything about the person. But notice how they act and try mimicking their successful habits until you can adapt them to your own style.

This is a way to cut down on unnecessary decisions. It also means you’re focused on what is important (who you are vs how you look).

It will clear your mind, process any negative energy, and give you a win every day.  🏀 🏈

Most daily communications are too long and rambling. Get to the point. 

People are busy. They don’t want you to go on and on. Be honest, direct and short.

People usually avoid asking directly because they fear rejection and embarrassment.

But we as humans are wired to want to help. Think about yourself, how you react when someone asks something of you - you probably make an effort to do it.

And if you’re rejected, you’ve lost nothing.

Keep a dream journal. Get into a habit, set things up the night before to reinforce your goal. 

In lucid dreams, you become aware you’re dreaming. You can take control of the plot. They can be anything from a brief moment where you’re in a nightmare and tell yourself: “this is a dream” and wake up. 

It is a byproduct of self-discipline — it requires a method, not just a positive attitude.

Rather than worrying about the end result, focus on how to make daily progress.

But by pushing ourselves too hard, we exhaust the mental muscles needed to stay focused, to avoid temptations, and to persist in the face of frustration or failure. 

Some possible but weak reasons why action is hard:

• Talent. But the world is full of brilliant stars that flame out and mediocre minds that build empires.
• Preferences can explain our failure to try, but don't explain our inner struggles with inaction.
• Capacity for effort. If your capacity for doing things is lower, it does not explain chronic bursts of activity with inevitable crashes in your goals and projects.
• Motivation. Some people with the most reason have the hardest time taking action. 

• Your motivation to complete a task depends on the value of the reward and your expectation of success. 
• Your expectation of success depends on your motivation.

If your projects tend to fail, your expectations are low, and motivation fades. If your projects tend to succeed, your expectations go up, and motivation stays strong.

Instead of sticking to dream goals it is better to set a life Direction.

How to figure out a Life Direction? Ask yourself these fundamental questions:

• What energizes me?
• What do I look forward to?
• When do I feel the happiest?
• What do I want to learn?
• What kind of places or people inspire me to strive for more?

Determine and plan in advance all the critical parts of your goal, and break it down in small, actionable tasks.

The small, divided tasks keep you motivated by providing a feeling of progress on a daily basis.

• Get an overview of everything that happened in the week. 
• Identify positives. Look at the things that you wanted to accomplish and did. 
• Identify negatives. Look at the things that you wanted to accomplish and didn’t. 
• Take notes and summarize your entire week, both positive and negative. 
• Take what you have learned from your previous week and plan your next week accordingly. 

We like to see real work being done. This is best shown in restaurants where customers can see chefs working in the kitchen. It builds anticipation and means we enjoy the end product more.

The effect is the same in the digital world. Search engines that appear transparent about what they are doing in the background are perceived as providing better quality, regardless of whether the results are, in fact, better.

Designers are not trying to give an accurate representation of time, but rather an experience.

Facebook redesigned its loading animation. They noticed that their custom animation of three lines increasing in size from left to right, led users to associate a slow service with Facebook, compared to the spinning wheel, which users associated with their device or their internet being slow.