Self Improvement Ideas & Tips Curated from Popular Sources

• Conduct user and customer interviews well beyond just current users and segments to gain broad, diverse perspectives.
• Ask genuinely open-ended questions and listen intently.
• Go deeper into understanding true needs and desires vs just feedback on existing products.
• Include non-customers and extreme users.

• Step #1: Take Your Emotional Temperature, around the most important areas of your life.
• Step #2: The Neurology of Ownership: When we take ownership of something–an item, an idea or a goal–we are more committed to it.
• Step #3: Outcome + Process: Most people set an intention or an ideal outcome and try working toward it, but that gets you only halfway there. You have to pick an outcome and a process.
• Step #4: Identify Blockers: When we first set our goals we are super optimistic and filled with hope–and that’s great. One thing that happens, however, is we fail to identify possible blockers.

Knowledge + skill = Power

If you're getting better every day, no one will be able to touch you.

Acting on the growth-driven mindset requires the ability to see where you are now (what you don’t know), where you would like to be in the future (what you want to learn), and then forming a plan to get to your goal.

• Admit your ignorance
• Figure out what you want to learn
• Make a plan to learn the skills or knowledge.
• Execute on the plan one step at a time

... not a wounded bird.

While a wounded bird usually can’t heal on its own, a sea star regenerates its own limbs. It doesn't have to wait for someone to come to the rescue.

While outside help can be beneficial, you don't always need someone to help you overcome an obstacle. You can find solutions to your problem.

When we take ownership of something, we work to keep it.

This step is about owning your intention. Look at your Goal Wheel and set an intention for that area.

For example:

• Business: Level up my business efforts so I can reach and help more people.
• Friends: Set aside time to support.
• Family: Dedicate real family time more often.
• Personal Passions: Learn how to paint and spend more time reading.
• Spiritual: Start meditating to create mental space and slow down at the end of a workday.
• Health: Get more toned and increase my endurance.

1. Identify your fear(s) and their stories
2. Change the stories and beliefs
3. Embody your new beliefs through experiments

Start Small, Stay Lean

• Bootstrap your startup and avoid premature funding that adds complexity.
• Begin with a minimum viable product to validate assumptions before scaling up.
• Keep operations lean, delaying hiring and overhead until revenue justifies it.

Scratch Your Own Itch

• Build products that scratch your own itch - solve a problem you personally face.
• This ensures a target audience exists and allows intuitive refinement based on your own user experience.

Don’t turn away from challenges. If you want to get better at anything, you’ve got to stress yourself. 

Just make sure that you follow these challenges with periods of rest and recovery.

Retrieval practice—where you shut the book and try to recall what you’ve learned without looking at it—is one of the most effective studying techniques.

• Do some of your work consciously
• Think about how it relates to other things
• Wrestle with the idea in your mind
• Explain it to someone
• Take notes on it or connect it to other maps
• Do anything to make that new idea connect with other ideas in your brain

Read once and then quiz yourself. Retrieving that information is what actually produces more robust learning and memory.

Even if you get the answers wrong, you'll still have an idea of what you don't know. This helps guide your studying more effectively.

"What-if" scenarios can be your friend. By letting yourself play out the worst-case outcomes, you're able to brace yourself for them.

The key here is that you're anticipating the unexpected. Instead of panicking, you'll be able to (better) "maintain your composure and continue your task to the best of your ability."

This happens because music stimulates the entire brain and not just segments of it. Using this knowledge can help you in various ways.

• Meditation. Some people use music to help them clear their minds.
• Listening to music while studying or working can help you remember more of the information.
• During exercise. It takes the mind’s focus off of fatigue.
• Focus on sleep. Music calms the mind and causes you to focus on your rest.

Before you can tackle something, you need to know what that something is.

The 4 fears listed above are just examples. You might have more. So:

• Identify what your self-sabotaging behaviors are
• Brain-dump the fear(s) driving each behavior
• Identify the belief or story behind each fear.

The story or belief could be about:

• Your abilities & lived experiences
• Your familial and social environment

• Discovery: We all go through periods of darkness and challenge and is where most of us discover the power of self-development.
• Consumption: Once you discover the world of personal development, you start reading books, blogs, listen to podcasts, watch documentaries.
• Application: At some point, you want to live what you’ve learned; you embody the knowledge you’ve acquired.
• Teaching: Once you’ve learned and applied your knowledge successfully, you want to share it with others. Just by setting the right example, you’re inspiring others how to do the same.

1. Borrowed Creativity

2. The Capture Habit

3. Idea Recycling

4. Proyects Over Categories

5. Slow Burns

6. Start with abundance

7. Intermediate Packets

8. You only know what you make

9. Make it easier for your future self

10. Keep your ideas moving:

Looking up to someone as a role model can be a transformative experience that significantly contributes to personal growth and development. This process involves observing and admiring the qualities, achievements, and behaviors of an individual whom you respect and aspire to emulate.

Incorporating the positive aspects of a role model into your own life can lead to substantial improvements in your character, skills, and overall well-being.

Simplicity: The Essence of Creation

You'd achieve more by building less.

Focus on what's absolutely necessary, and consider automating or outsourcing the rest.

Strive for excellence in one thing rather than being average in many.

Collaborate with your customers, iterate solutions with them, and ensure it's something they'd pay for.

The word Egotism carries a negative connotation. However, it's not always negative. If it can cause people to do silly, irrational and destructive things, it can also cause them to act nobly and heroically.

Fun Facts : -

• We are all egotists.
• We are more interested in ourselves than in anything else.
• Every person you meet wants to feel important and wants to amount to something.
• There is a craving in everyone for the approval of others, so that he can approve himself.
• If you are on good terms with yourself, you're on good terms with others.
• A starved ego is a mean ego.

These will serve as guidelines for regaining emotional, social, financial & spiritual freedom.

1. Meet life with Full Presence
2. Reclaim your Agenda
3. Defeat your Demons
4. Advance with Abandon
5. Practice Joy & Gratitude
6. Do NOT break Integrity
7. Amplify Love
8. Inspire Greatness
9. Slow Time

There's always something to be grateful for.

The power you have is learning to focus on that which you have, rather than that which you have not.

Each day, jot down a few things that you're grateful for, and be really specific, or you can also reflect on your gratitude at night before bed.

• Reflect on the information you have captured and organized. Review your notes regularly. Use your second brain to make decisions and generate new ideas.
• Reflection is an important part of the process. It allows you to think about what you have learned and how you can apply it in your life. Assess the usefulness of the information and decide whether to keep it or discard it.
• The Goal is to keep only the most valuable information and discard the rest.

By following this code method, you will be able to process and make sense the information you capture.

1. Identify idiots early. The sooner you can identify an idiot, the sooner you can start to protect yourself from them.

2. Don't try to change idiots. Idiots are not going to change, so don't waste your time and energy trying to do so.

3. Don't take idiots personally. Idiots are not attacking you personally, they are just being idiots.

4. Set boundaries with idiots. Don't let idiots into your life if you don't have to.

5. Don't argue with idiots. It's a pointless exercise.

To become your own hero, go above and beyond surface level information. 

Reading the right book or article can provide you with valuable guidance that you probably won’t find anywhere else.

Believe in what you feel and know. Don't let anyone make you doubt yourself or your experiences.

As a general rule, the fewer the ingredients, the more nourishing the food.

• If you want to have more energy and feel better throughout the day, swap out some processed meals for Whole Foods.
• You can enjoy things like fruits, vegetables, eggs, and nuts, just things that you can actually pronounce.

Cut down on chemicals, dyes, and other ingredients that you can't pronounce. I suggest taking a look at your next meal, how many ingredients can you actually identify? If you don't know what you're eating, you're more likely to ingest something that will make you feel sluggish and unproductive.

Thinking about the details makes you more likely to follow through. 

Just writing down your plan also makes a big difference in effectively committing to your goals.

You must take personal responsibility for your actions.

You cannot keep blaming others for everything wrong happening in your life.

You may not be able to change the circumstances but you can change how you perceive every situation.

Clearly set and share your boundaries to safeguard your mental and emotional health.

Say clearly what you're okay with and what you're not, so people can't take advantage of you.

The six pillars of mental health, physical health and performance are:

• Sleep
• Sunlight, proper light and dark exposure
• Nutrition
• Exercise, cardiovascular movement
• Stress management
• Relationships, social interactions (this also includes the relationship with yourself)

Huberman adds oral health, as it influences the entire body, such as your brain or your gut health.

• Your time is now. Stop acting like you have all the time in the world.
• If you keep waiting to get started, you’ll wake up one day and wonder where your life went.
• Manufacture urgency – urgency is not natural – it has to be created and recreated e.g. cut your target completion date in half and start now.
• The amateur sits around waiting to be inspired – the pro creates inspiration.

In order to make sure you get those 2 to 3 tasks done, you need to do them early in order to stay focused on the task without feeling overwhelmed.

It’s tough, but waiting to do them later only invites distraction to take over. Those distractions will inevitably come in the form of unexpected emails, social media, a child that needs your attention, or coworkers who need a helping hand on their projects. 

A glass of water may seem like the smallest of baby steps towards self-improvement but it's still a step forward:

• We often neglect the recommendation to drink 8 glasses of water each day and your body needs water to maintain bodily functions and keep you healthy.
• Dehydration may cause headaches fatigue or problems with your skin.
• Keep a full glass of water near your desk. The secret is to keep the glass of water full. It's a psychological trick called the availability bias that makes your brain think "Hey there's a bunch of water there we should drink some water".

It is often easier and more effective in persuasion to change specific behaviors and actions rather than trying to change abstract attitudes, beliefs and feelings.

• Make the desired action easy, normal, rewarding and congruent for your audience.
• Tweak environmental factors that shape behaviors to cue the wanted response.
• Promote step-by-step attainable actions rather than vague aspirations.
• Remove friction and barriers to the behavior.
• Shape the path of least resistance to guide people effortlessly into your preferred behaviors.

• Inference-observation confusion: An assumption made that may or may not be correct. Example: Concluding that a guy is rich, based on the car he drives.
• Fortune-Telling: Assumption of knowing exactly what will happen in the future.
• Mind Reading: Assuming based on how to have read someone's mind and concluded something which may not be true.
• Extreme Extrapolation: Finding a minor clue and making something major out of it.
• Overgeneralization: Copy-pasting a piece of knowledge over something that you think is related, but is not.
• Labeling: Stereotyping a set of people based on their likes and dislikes.

Disciplined people don't waste time on unimportant tasks. They have a clear goal and a to-do list that helps them stay on track. They don't get sidetracked by social media, emails, or other distractions. So, put down your phone, close your email, and focus on what's really important.

• Have a clear goal and prioritize
• Create to-do list and plan ahead
• Avoid distractions

If you want to improve or increase your focus, you need to learn to deal with the distractions in your life, and here’s how:

1. Keep Your Vision and Goals in Mind
2. Clarify Your Day Before You Start
3. Reduce the Chaos of Your Day
4. Do Those Tasks as Soon as Possible
5. Focus on the Smallest Part of Your Work at a Time
6. Visualize Yourself Working
7. Control Your Internal Distractions
8. Remove External Distractions
9. Skip What You Don’t Know
10. Improve Your Discipline With Focus Practice
11. Manage Your Momentum

It’s important to start with a good base for your focus as you learn how to avoid distraction. This means figuring out exactly why you need to focus in the first place.

• Do you have a big presentation at work next week that you need to prepare for?
• Do you have a dream of learning to play the guitar and need to focus for an hour each day while you practice?

Deciding what your ultimate goal is will help you dedicate yourself to learning how to focus.

In the morning, before your workday begins, dedicate a few minutes to managing your schedule.

• Have a moment to set your priorities and determine which tasks are truly vital and urgent that day;
• Which are not so urgent but still very important;
• And which you should avoid, either by delegating or eliminating them altogether.

We get preoccupied with things that make us busy in the present and often forget about our future selves. Here are some ways we can help remind ourselves:

1. Create reminders to make your subconscious think about your future self.
2. Plan your days and set those days towards achieving something you've always wanted.
3. Set bigger goals and set a clear picture of what they are and how you want to achieve them.
4. Associate your future with the present.

Draw out the information in a visual form: diagrams, visual models or flowcharts.

Anything that creates active learning, that engages you and helps you generate understanding on your own, is very effective in retention. 

• Ikigai: find your unique contribution, live longer
• Ichigo Ichie: learn how to make the most of each moment and fulfill your Ikigai
• Joy at work: set your vision and curate your work life for joy and productivity
• Wabi sabi: find beauty in imperfection and craft your own path

A good method to achieve your goal is to break it down into bite-size pieces using SMART goals.

• S - Specific. Create clear and achievable goals. Instead of wanting to write a book this year, aim for writing one chapter every month.
• M - Measurable. Your progress should be measurable.
• A - Achievable. Aim high, but within reason.
• R - Relevant. You care about your goal rather than thinking you should care about the goal.
• T - Time-bound. Create a timeline with specific dates and deadlines.

• Start with the top 1000 words in your new language.
• Add keywords based on your interests.
• Use a thematic vocabulary book.
• Use Google Images to find quality example sentences and pictures for your words.
• Write example sentences and definitions, get them corrected.
• Add a dictionary when you have enough vocabulary.

Read a book.

• The first book should be familiar to you.

Watch movies and TV.

• Read an overview of the series or movie first. Don't use subtitles.

The game of taboo.

The only rule - no first language allowed.

• Do video chatting.
• Take language holidays.

• Ancestrally, we’re built to withstand stress to survive – now, our society is built on comfort, so we aren’t expending energy to live anymore
• Adversity mimetics: things that mimic biological adversity that is conducive to better lifespan and healthspan
• Adversity signals survival circuit and turns on specific survival genes
• A single gene alteration can have a significant impact on an organism’s lifespan
• Three main adversity sensors: mTor (senses levels of amino acids in the cell), AMPK (senses energy/glucose), sirtuins (sense NAD)

If you have 20 tasks you need done every day, how effective do you think your focus ability will be?

• You need to break it down to the essentials if you want to learn how to not get distracted.
• Focus on only doing 2-3 important tasks a day, but no more than that. It’s all you need to take steps towards accomplishing your goals.

Slower is much better than giving up early because you took on too much, too soon.

Most goals will at least take a few weeks to months to accomplish, and knowing that can make it feel like it’ll take too long to do.

This will cause you to do one of two things:

• You become discouraged because the goal is too big.
• You fantasize about what it’ll feel like to achieve the goal.

Either is terrible for your focus and always a potential problem when focusing on the big picture or using visualization. Instead, focus on doing a very small, minimum amount of work.

This tip is a bit more straightforward as it requires you to simply distance yourself physically from things that are causing distractions:

• If the television is disrupting, turn it off or work in another room.
• If your kids are playing and yelling, try getting up to work before they wake up.
• If you keep checking your phone, put your phone on silent while you’re working.
• Empty the wall in front of you to keep your mind on track. Photos, prints and various knick-knacks you like to display may be cute, but they will make your mind wander.

How you visualise a goal or problem in your mind dictates how well you lean into that goal: whether you will be able to meet the goal, how you feel after & your capacity to tackle larger goals.

Do you have trouble finishing your run? Focus on intermediate targets along the way which makes the goal feel closer and you push harder.

Most people have an inner critic that judges them, doubts them, belittles them, and always telling them they are not good enough.

You are able to stop beating yourself up.

• Start paying attention to your thoughts. It will help you notice when your inner critic is busy.
• Separate the critic from your own identity. You can even give your critic a name.
• Tell your critic to go away.
• Replace the critic by noticing positive qualities.

• Our Brains are not well-suited to sorting large amounts of information. We are also constantly bombarded with distractions that make it difficult to focus and think clearly. So we need a system for capturing and organizing our thoughts, ideas and knowledge
• The process of building a second brain is summed up in the CODE method. This consists of four key steps 

1. CAPTURE
2. ORGANIZE
3. DEVELOP
4. EVALUATE

1. Develop a growth Mindset: Be willing to learn, grow and adapt. Seek out new information and experiences and be open to new ideas and perspectives.
2. Be Curious and explore: Take an active, exploratory approach to leaning and personal development. Have a curious and open-minded attitude. Be willing to seek out new experiences and challenge assumptions.
3. Have purpose and focus: Set clear goals and priorities Focus on the most valuable and relevant info.

In order to become the highest version of self, we must have a thorough understanding of ourselves. This involves both a strong connection to and awareness of who we are.

To operate as our true selves, we must take the time to discover our true nature through self-reflection, self-care, and self development.

Being too attached to other people, places and things will cause one to remain living under a false identity.

It is okay to redirect your attention to self, and is required if one wants to live authentically.

While genetic research stands out in favour of rigidity, there is contrary evidence.

• One is that most psychology studies are done using Western undergraduates. This means that while we think we measure universal human functioning, we may be measuring culturally-specific ones.
• If our abilities were fixed, then the amount of work required to get good is greatly reduced.
• Positive feedback increases motivation and confidence. This means that if you started with a fixed advantage towards math, for example, it might increase as you gain more confidence and make you much, much better at math than you would have been without motivation and confidence.

Internal distractions are one of those problems you can’t really run away from. You need to find ways to prepare your mind for work, and find simple ways to keep it from straying to non-essential thoughts in order to learn how to not get distracted.

There are a few types of internal distractions:

• Priority Chaos. One of the most common distractions we encounter is that we have too many options on hand. This can cause priority chaos.
• Short & Long Term Mismatch. Our brains are not good at evaluating and comparing short term and long term benefits.

There are a few focus exercises you can do to improve your overall discipline.

1. The first one is meditation, which is basically the definition of focus in practice. It’s a great method for building focus ability, de-stressing, and giving you greater control over your emotions.
2. The second exercise is the Pomodoro method, which asks you to set a timer to track the time you spend on a task. These are basically “focus sprints,” and each one is followed by a solid break. Like real sprints, you’ll get better and better at doing them over time.

Implement these commandants in your life to bring change:

1. Honour and Integrity
2. Responsibility and dependability
3. Courage and bravery
4. Respect for elders and authority
5. Providing for and protecting family
6. Hard work and determination
7. Loyalty and commitment
8. Emotional control and Stoicism
9. Self-reliance and independence
10. Humility and modesty

We all want connection with others, true connection. That’s impossible when we’re constantly lying about who we are and how we’re showing up in the world, and people pleasing also means never trusting anyone else enough to get to know the real you.

If you’re busy trying to please everyone else, you’re actually just hiding from the world. People are missing out on the most amazing version of you, because you’re too busy trying to be agreeable with everybody else that no one ever gets to know you. That’s a lonely place to be.

Momentum is like a discipline lubricant‒it helps ease the process of sticking with goals.

This means each and every day, we need to do something to further our goals (yes, even weekends and holidays). I don’t necessarily mean a big task, but rather, any task that brings us closer to our goals.

For instance:

• If your goal is to be a freelance writer, then write one single pitch on a weekend.
• If your goal is to get healthy, then go for a short, 5-minute walk, even on Christmas day.

Keep your caring side, but don't let others hurt you. Some people act mean because they've been hurt too.

We live between rigidity and malleability. It means that both self-discovery and self-improvement matter.

• Self-discovery matters because the goals you set, and the life philosophy you hold, needs to be informed by the parts of yourself that tend to be fixed.
• Self-improvement is important because we are able to modify many of our traits. Self-improvement also leads to self-discovery. The more you experiment and strive, the more you learn about yourself.

What does help in a situation in which you are scared: training, courage, discipline, commitment and calm.

From all of the above, courage is held by the stoics as the most essential virtue.

When you’re in fight-or-flight mode, your breathing becomes irregular, fast, short, and shallow. Regulating it can be your first line of defense. Lengthen your exhales and focus on breathing from your belly. Inhale for a count of four and exhale for a count of eight. This slows down your heartbeat, stabilizes your blood pressure, and encourages full oxygen exchange, which is critical to the brain’s ability to function.

1. Work: your job
2. Personal: relationships, hobbies, health
3. Home: Household chores

Don't try to spread your time and energy equally between these three areas. Ask yourself: "What is most important right now?"

1. Your mission: ABC Brain Dump will give you 26 different words -  look for recurring patterns/themes and write down your easily memorable and short mission statement.  
2. Your vision: “Where do you want to be in the future?” Use a vision board and imagine your best possible future. Turn it into a short, memorable vision statement.  
3. Your core values: Write down no more than 6 words that you would like others to use when describing you in your absence.  

Put these 3 together and you will have a better idea of your life's purpose and a guide for making better decisions.  

1. Drink more water
2. Eat Whole Foods
3. Practice Daily Gratitude
4. Pick up a book
5. Listen to a TED Talk
6. Forgive someone
7. Join a group!
8. Congratulate yourself

If you can be exposed to a fact, idea or procedure multiple times, you’ll retain it far longer than if you experience it only once.

Don’t complicate your life or waste your precious time by building a boat on the sidelines. Simplify the process. 

• Focus on what's necessary. Start small and build yourself a raft, slide it into the river stream, and as you actively row and flow in the direction that you please, grow your raft into a boat.
• Move, and be with the flow. In other words, don’t mistake motion for action. Motion is the preparation phase. Action is the practice phase. 

• Romantic love: Based on passion and sexual attraction
• Best friends: Fondness and deep affection
• Logical: Practical feelings based on shared values, financial goals, religion etc.
• Playful: Elicit feelings by flirtation or feeling challenged
• Possessive: Jealousy and obsession
• Unselfish: Nurturing, kindness, and sacrifice

In our most committed relationship, we feel a combination of two or three different forms of love. Understanding what forms of love your partner appreciates can help your relationship.

Make a list of things you want to do but are not doing.

Some habits need to be gradually built up to, and some can be started immediately.

Gradual habits include:

• Exercise
• Reading
• Writing

Anything that requires stamina to be built up is gradual.

Immediate habits include:

• Hygiene
• Tidying Up
• Tracking Expenses

Anything small enough to not require much energy, mental or physical, to do.

Make a list of things you are doing that you don't want to do.

Much like the previous slide, habits can be destroyed gradually or immediately.

Gradual habits include:

• Addictions
• Harmful Thoughts
• Poor Sleep Hygiene

Anything that requires consistency over a long period of time is gradual.

Immediate habits include:

• App Usage
• Online Purchases
• Not Getting Enough Fresh Air

Anything that can be immediately and easily changed is considered immediate.

1. Convince yourself once and for all that other people are important. "For ease of application - Imagine as if they are the last person standing on the earth other than you, wouldn't they be important?"
2. Notice Others. When you're dealing with a group, try to acknowledge everyone in the group.
3. Don't compete with people. The most effective way to make a good impression on others is to let them know you're impressed by them. 
4. Know when to correct others. "Does it make any real difference whether they're right or wrong?" 

PS :- Don't try to win all the little battles!

• To decide, which goal you want to work on first, rate them from 1 to 10 depending on how important they are for you. Goals with the highest rating should be your priority for now.
• Another way to prioritize personal goals is to connect the desired outcomes as causes and effects. You will be able to see that some goals will ease the other ones.

Impact requires venturing into the unknown (whose risk most people avoid) and leadership (which acts as a multiplier of impact).

Four steps:

1. Get rid of debts, and have some savings.
2. Create room for experimentation in your current job.
3. Begin experimentation: Use money from step 1 to experiment around, while working.
4. Strike out on your own by following the direction set by a successful experiment from step 3.

Everyone has a desire to feel understood, valued, and heard. When we feel appreciated, we are more likely to be cooperative and productive.

• Understand the other person's point of view.
• Find merit in what they think, feel, or do.
• Communicate your understanding through words or actions.
• Give them a genuine compliment.
• Take the time to listen to them.
• Remember their interests and preferences.

Winners triangle is the opposite of the Drama triangle (Karpman) It is a way to turn a negative situation into something positive and create a win-win for everyone involved.

🔻The Drama Triangle is a negative cycle that causes conflicts.

Introduced by Acey Choy in 1990, the Winners Triangle is a way to break that cycle and create a positive outcome for all.

Subtly employ the arts of conversation, inference and the unexpected to make your messages "wantable" - engaging the nonconscious mind in ways that facts and logic alone cannot.

• Promote curiosity.
• Establish implicit understanding with the audience.
• Imply associations and qualities of your product obliquely through narratives.
• Surprise people and violate expectations to capture attention.

Using art, convey things the audience already knows deep-down but cannot articulate on their own.

1. Eat a variety of foods
2. Base your diet on plenty of foods rich in carbohydrates
3. Replace saturated with unsaturated fat
4. Enjoy plenty of fruits and vegetables
5. Reduce salt and sugar intake
6. Eat regularly, control the portion size
7. Drink plenty of fluids
8. Maintain a healthy body weight
9. Get on the move, make it a habit!
10. Start now! And keep changing gradually.

Do, or do not. There is no “try”.

– Yoda, The Empire Strikes Back

Focus your attention on what you can do to keep working “mindlessly” at all costs. All this means is that you should focus on the easy parts first.

Eventually, you can come back to the more difficult parts, and hopefully by then it’ll have come to you or you’ll have built up enough momentum that it won’t break your focus if you work on it.

• If you didn’t do everything you planned on doing, don’t beat yourself up about it. Forgive yourself.
• Show gratitude. Reach out to a co-worker at the end of the day to say thank you.
• Do someone a favor. Doing something for someone else is scientifically proven to make you happier.

Focus on baby steps. The key to new good habits is to do the minimum and be consistent.

Do not be ambitious at the beginning. That leads to failure. Consistency is what you’re shooting for, so make the hurdle as low as possible.

• Break down your goals into tasks and create a working plan.
• Each task should be specific and have a deadline. Write them down to track your performance increase commitment to your goal.
• When writing, use positive and present tense language. It has a great impact on your own expectations of yourself.

It is a cognitive bias: we tend to have a specific change in preferences between two options when also presented with a third option that is asymmetrically dominated.

This is the secret agent in more decisions than we could imagine. It even helps us decide whom to date—and, ultimately, whom to marry.

Are you getting good sleep?

Good quality sleep is something so essential that we often neglect. Working on improving your sleep is a great place to start. (Sleep 8 or more hours per night, sleep everyday at the same hour, same for waking up, reduce caffeine and alcohol usage).

Good sleep puts you in a better mood. It reduces stress, improves brain function, lowers blood pressure and it improves your immune system. 

It means the ability to think clearly, and it extends to determining what you want to be, have, or do in life. Successful people have a clear sense of direction and know what they want to accomplish.

• Be decisive: Do not waste time overthinking or being indecisive. The more decisions you make, the easier it becomes, and you develop the habit of decisiveness.
• Having a vision for yourself and your life: To have a vision, you must have a dream. Dreams and visions keep you motivated and give you a sense of direction. Build a foundation under your dreams and make them a reality.

Mark the calendar. Set the alarm. Use a checklist.

When you’re trying to break bad habits, you need to resist. But with good habits, you need to remind.

• Make memories more memorable. Make foreign words more memorable by learning the sound system of your language, then connect those sounds to images, then connect those images to your past experiences.
• Maximize laziness. Don't do rote repetition. Study a concept until you can repeat it once without looking, then stop.
• Recall rather than review. Make and use flashcards containing images and personal connections for words, pronunciation or grammatical construction.
• Test yourself just before you think you'll forget.
• Rewrite the past. When you recall a memory, you can rewrite earlier experiences.

If you feel like a fraud in your new job role, don't quit! You are in good company.

Almost everyone is a fraud out there who had to:

1. Start a new job without any experience or mentorship.
2. Encounter a novel, never-before-seen situation.

You need to bluff your way through and become better. Fake it till you make it.

• Lack of focus is the number 1 obstacle standing between people and their dreams.
• Reaching our goals involves self-control, delayed gratification and ignoring distractions and temptations that can divert us from our path.
• Emails and social media are dream killers – putting you in the driver’s seat for someone else’s vision.
• In a world telling you to choose others, choose yourself. You need to be selfish to achieve success.

Ineffective communicators overload people with information.

Listen more than talk. Observe reactions. Validate others' perspectives. Ask clarifying questions.

Choose words carefully to find common ground. two-way dialogue beats one-sided lecturing.

Instead of worrying about the outcome, worry about the task at hand.

That means developing tunnel vision. When you keep your eye on the task at hand (and only the task at hand), all you can see is the concrete steps necessary to excel.