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How To Improve Yourself In 6 Months - James Altucher
Failing is key to success
When trying to improve certain skills, bear in mind that failing is not an issue: the more you fail, the more chances you get to study your own mistakes and learn from them.
Therefore, take risks by accepting different challenges related to your passion, which could teach you valuable lessons.
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The self-improvement process
If one day you find yourself in need to improve, you might as well take into account the following elements worthy of your attention: you ought to find an obsession that keeps your interest to improve constantly alive, once you have that, you should study your strengths and weaknesses related to this obsession in order to improve further.
Improving micro-skills
If you are planning on improving yourself at something in particular, you should also be prepared to work on developing some other several micro-skills necessary in order to get the job done.
It would be useful to gather up all the knowledge you have acquired up to the present moment, be it even by hours. The more, the better.
Failing is key to success
When trying to improve certain skills, bear in mind that failing is not an issue: the more you fail, the more chances you get to study your own mistakes and learn from them.
Therefore, take risks by accepting different challenges related to your passion, which could teach you valuable lessons.
Get out of your comfort zone
In order to be successful, one has to be the best at what he or she does. One sure way to ensure your success is by doing things differently than the others. That is to say, you should leave the comfort zone everybody is so addicted to.
Be unique and remember your basics
When thinking about self-improvement, try considering being original and having a unique point of view as a strong quality that makes you stand out from the crowd.
Moreover, another secret which can enable you reach improvement faster could be by remembering, when in doubt, your basics.
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Hack the 10,000 hour rule
This rule was developed by Anders Ericsson and popularized by Malcolm Gladwell and states that we need 10,000 hours of deliberate practice to succeed at anything.
This may create f...
Plus, Minus, Equal
- Plus: Find mentors, real (maybe someone from your work) or virtual (from books). Learn from someone with more experience than you.
- Minus: Explain what you are learning while you are learning it. Teach someone with less experience than you.
- Equal: Find people who love what you love and spend as much time talking about this shared area as you can.
Micro-Skills
Every skill worth learning has dozens of micro-skills.
List the micro-skills. Figure out what you are good at, what you are bad at, and how you can learn to be better at each.
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Being Mediocre
Most of us are in the 'mediocre' zone, making a living and trying to do our best in confining circumstances. We try to work, raise a family, and try to be happy.
Aiming to reach towards t...
Procrastination
Procrastination is generally looked down upon and thought of as laziness, but it is your body telling you that you need to back off and think about what you are doing.
You should try and figure out why you are procrastinating, as it can be a symptom of something broken in your life.
Zero-Tasking
We all multitask at some point or the other, some of us more than others. Our attention and intelligence are deviated and substracted during multi-tasking.
Single-tasking is better than multi-tasking, as focusing completely on one thing at any given time is optimal. Even better is to move into silence and nothingness by doing zero-tasking. The more we zero-task (another name for mindfulness or meditation), the more we progress into creativity and excellence.
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More Success For Others Than For You
Figure out how your employees, clients, and customers can be successful in what they are doing.
Constructive Criticism
Don't just say NO to something you don't like or want to change.
Say, 'Yes, and.." then provide constructive feedback on what is good and what can be improved.
One thing you are grateful for
Practice saying and recalling things that you are grateful for. It changes your mindset positively, leading to better productivity.
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Work outside of your comfort zone
- Commit to working on your weaknesses.
- Try to step back and take other ideas and criticisms.
- When you're feeling overwhelmed with a problem, walk away from the issue for a minut...
3 Lessons In Failure
“One, what you like isn’t always going to be what other people like. Two, learn how to take criticism well. And three, be honest with yourself, and remember why you failed. Use it in the future.” - Eric Hernandez
What to do with your criticism of yourself
Access how you’re feeling, acknowledge that, and think about how you're going to be feeling one, two, or five years down the road. If the choices that you are making now can paint a picture of where you see yourself being happy in that future, then I know I’m in the right place.
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Rethinking Success
We liken success to sports, exams or battles that have winners and losers, and that have an end. However, success means having the stamina to keep going.
There might be many peop...
Patience and Idleness
The kind of patience that leads to success is not the same as waiting. Waiting has no benefits. Investing time doesn't do anything on its own.
The kind of patience needed for success is an active, self-doubting kind of patience. It's putting in enormous amounts of work, reviewing the work, questioning if it was the right work, then making adjustments and trying again.
Build-Up and Breakthroughs
Success tends to accrue in two different modes:
- Build up: It is the steady accumulation of improvements that you can see month after month, that will eventually help you reach your destination.
- Breakthroughs: It requires a lot of effort with no visible benefits, but every once in a while, there's an insight that unlocks your potential.
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You are broke because of you
You are broke because your financial decisions were not the best, in the past.
This not about winning the lottery or landing in a high-paying job. Just by changing your behavior, this situati...
How to fix your money problems
Your financial issues are fixable if you:
- Take your money seriously
- Stop unnecessary consumerism
- Stop making and defending your bad decisions.
The broke leading the broke
A majority of people are broke, actually. We are not taking our money seriously, and just living paycheck to paycheck. We are doing it because there are so many like us, around us, doing the same.
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Struggling To Build Healthy Habits
- We tend to bite off more than we can chew, go too fast too soon, and then get overwhelmed too quickly.
- We’re conditioned these days to expect and receive instant gratification.
Your “Big Why”
As you’re determining the habits or resolutions you’re trying to set, make the habit part of a bigger cause that’s worth the struggle.
You’re not just going to the gym, you’re building a new body that you’re not ashamed of so you can start dating again.
Healthy Habit Building 101
There are 3 parts to a good or bad habit: Cue (what triggers the action), Routine (the action itself), Reward (the positive result because of the action).
You have trained your brain to take a cue (you see a doughnut), anticipate a reward (a sugar high), and make the behavior automatic (nom that donut).Compare that to a cue (you see your running shoes), anticipate a reward (a runner’s high), and make the behavior automatic (go for a run!).
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