Get out of your comfort zone

• 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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!).

We need to protect our brain from negativity, hatred, and racism that we see all around us.

The outside world and its many twisted problems, shown to us 24/7 aren't helping us or our family in any positive way.

Our daily lives are filled with ugliness, and forgiveness is the key to survival in this age.

Instead of trying to fix everything, just remain calm, forgive and move on. This is one of the surest ways to get your happiness back.

 “Role Modelling” is one of the main factors behind successful change in organizations and consists of inspiring change by example.

While leadership will ultimately give you sign-off, the rest of the team will determine its success. So in an organizational setting, you must convince everyone of the necessity of change. 

In a collection of individuals, one bad seed can kill all the hard work you’re putting in. You must understand who you are working with so you can tailor your message and actions so no one becomes a bad seed. To do this, sort your team in the following categories:

• Fast Yes: those on your team and ready to work to implement the change.
• Slow Yes: slightly skeptical but still open and can see the value in what you’re doing.
• Fast No: quick to dismiss change but clarity and decisiveness can change that and turn them into strong supporters.
• Slow No: look like they can be persuaded but have already decided against you and will stall and undermine. Here, convincing by example is the best route.

Your financial issues are fixable if you:

• Take your money seriously
• Stop unnecessary consumerism
• Stop making and defending your bad decisions.

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. 

Behavior change is hard, because we become comfortable with our patterns. It up takes a great deal of mental energy until it becomes habit.

Intermittent fasting challenges the “three meals a day plus snacks” style of eating we are so accustomed to, in which it’s easy to feel like you should take in a meal, even when you’re not hungry, simply because it’s lunchtime.

To avoid the morning munchies, look at the last meal you ate before starting your fast: Did it have enough fiber? Protein? Whole grains? Are you hydrated? Filling up with balanced and satiating foods before your fast will keep you fuller longer.

Of course, if you’re nearing the end of your fast and no amount of black coffee will fill the void, breaking your fast early is not the end of the world. 

Values can be personified in people that you love and admire. Identifying the specific values embodied by your heroes can inspire you to adopt those values for yourself. To uncover the values that you associate with your loved ones and role models:

• Identify and write down six people who are important role models or valued connections for you.
• Think of the values they embody. 

Your values are a major determinant of career choice, work decisions, and career transitions, as each may lead you down a different career path. 

That’s why career counselors have a large toolbox of strategies and inventories, including values inventories to help match their clients to a compatible career area.

One common tactic is to portray the help we need as so small, that it is barely a favor. "Would you add these updates to the database? It won’t take you more than five minutes.”

It is conveying that you think the work the other person does is easy, quick, trivial and not very taxing. That’s not a great way to enlist help. You might also underestimate the size of the favor. Do not presume it won’t take them very long the next time you ask them for help.

While reciprocity does make people more likely to comply with the request, it also makes us feel controlled, which takes all the fun out of it.

Reminding someone that they owe you a favor does not create good feelings. Scorekeeping is fundamentally bad for relationships.