If you are learning a new language, trying a new hobby, or going to a new job. After some time working hard, what you do may uninterest you. Stop feeling guilty if you feel so. This happens to almost everyone and is completely normal. Especially when you are learning alone.

Are You Uninterested

First, analyse your stats. Understand what feeling/s made you feel uninterested.Are you uninterested because you feel...<ul><li>Frustrated</li></ul>One of the most recurring feeling. If you are not able to perform nicely, you may feel frustrated.<ul><li>Alone</li></ul>If you are doing/learning something by yourself, you may not get the needed motivation.<ul><li>Your Activity is not cool</li></ul>Maybe you have chosen something to do which is disliked, or considered not cool by your friends. For example, You want to learn sewing but friends may call it a boring activity to learn or do.

How Are You Feeling About What You Are Doing

If your feeling is a negative one, turn it into a positive feeling. Ex. If you are feeling frustrated, understand what is making you feel so. The Concept which you are unable to catch can be improved with practice.

Change Your Feelings

Understand Yourself. Understand Your Weaknesses and Concerns. Act Upon them.

In A Nutshell...

A Simple, 4-Step Guide To Stop Procrastination and Quitting

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

How To Not Quit Something Midway

An IQ test is an assessment that measures a range of cognitive abilities and provides a score that is intended to serve as a measure of an individual's intellectual abilities and potential. IQ tests are among the most commonly administered psychological tests.

What's IQ Test? 

There are a number of different intelligence tests in existence and their content can vary considerably. Some are used with adults, but many are specifically designed to be administered to children.<ul><li>Cognitive Assessment System</li><li>Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children</li><li>Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale</li><li>Universal Nonverbal Intelligence Test</li><li>Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale</li><li>Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children</li><li>Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Cognitive Abilities</li></ul>

Types Of IQ Tests

IQ tests can be used for a wide range of purposes including:<ul><li>Educational assessment and placement</li><li>Assessment and diagnosis of intellectual disability</li><li>Cognitive research</li><li>Job candidate evaluation</li><li>Assessing cognitive abilities including memory, speed, and attention</li></ul>

Uses Of IQ Test

Modern intelligence tests often focus on abilities such as mathematical skills, memory, spatial perception, and language abilities. The capacity to see relationships, solve problems, and remember information are important components of intelligence, so these are often the skills on which IQ tests focus.

Why IQ Test?

Your IQ can have an impact on different areas of your life including school and work. High scores are often associated with higher achievement in school, while <a href="https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-considered-a-low-iq-2795282">lower scores </a>may be linked to some form of intellectual disability.

High Scores V/S Low Scores

<ul><li>Language skills </li><li>Mathematical abilities </li><li>Memory </li><li>Processing speed </li><li>Reasoning abilities </li><li>Visual-spatial processing </li> </ul>

Tips To Increase Your IQ

<ul><li>Discrimination : IQ tests have been used to justify eugenicist movements and discrimination against minority groups and disabled individuals. </li><li>Validity : Not all experts agree on a standard <a href="https://www.verywellmind.com/theories-of-intelligence-2795035">definition of intelligence </a>, so not all IQ tests measure the same things. </li><li>Reliability : There is also the question of how reliable these tests are. Reliable IQ tests should provide consistent results. People should score roughly the same each time they take the test. </li> </ul>

IQ Testing Is Controversial?!!

<ul><li>Educational access and background</li><li>Nutrition</li><li>Culture</li><li>Environment</li><li>Overall health and medical conditions</li></ul>

Factors That Influence IQ Scores

An IQ test assesses cognitive abilities and provides a score meant to be a measure of intellectual potential and ability. Learn how IQ tests work.

Understand yourself and those around you.

psychology

Psychology

problemsolving

Problem Solving

teamwork

Teamwork

scienceandnature

Science & Nature

IQ Test 101

<ul><li>January is considered one of the most stressful months of the year for several reasons. One of the biggest: <a href="https://www.verywellmind.com/new-year-resolutions-for-stress-relief-3144722">New Year’s resolutions </a>.</li><li>Well-intentioned goals become a source of stress—stress that prevents you from moving forward and achieving your goals. </li><li>For each common resolution, look for ways to achieve it in a way that is positive and affirming instead of stressful.</li></ul>

January- The Most Stressful Month Of The Year?!

<ul><li>The most common New Year's resolution has to do with getting in shape. </li><li>If you're trying to hit the gym to improve your health, enlist a friend to exercise with you. </li><li>A workout buddy means you have an incentive to exercise, along with built-in social support.</li><li>Fitness technology can also help you stay on track. </li><li>Having all your information in one place and readily available can help you be more aware and get closer to your fitness goals.</li></ul>

1. Get Fit?!

<ul><li>You know you should save. Sometimes this is easier said than done. </li><li>But when you look around and it seems like no one else is doing it, you feel alone. </li><li>Furthermore, it can be stressful to try to find the money to save. </li><li>But budgeting for your future doesn’t have to be a stressful task.</li></ul>

2. Save Money 

Turn your weight-loss resolutions into <a href="https://www.verywellmind.com/smart-goals-for-lifestyle-change-2224097">SMART goals </a>. SMART is an acronym that stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound. Here are some SMART weight loss goal ideas:<ul><li>I will lose one pound each week until I reach XXX pounds in eight months.</li><li>I will lose six pounds a month until I reach XXX pounds in one year.</li></ul>

3. Lose Weight 

<ul><li>Losing weight is a very popular New Year’s resolution, and it's usually a great idea for overall health as well as for the fun of fitting into better clothes.</li><li>However, especially with certain types of diets, the first days of a new diet can bring frustration (from feeling "deprived" of favorite foods), moodiness (from biological changes in your body), and the loss of a coping mechanism (for emotional eaters who can no longer eat to deal with the stress).</li><li>It can be as stressful to be around a person who is trying a new diet as it can be to be that person, so stress management is key here as well.</li></ul>

4. New Diets 

<ul><li>No matter what the specific change you’re attempting, New Year’s resolutions can be stressful if tackled with the traditional method of setting a high goal and trying to attain it immediately. </li><li>When people fail once, they tend to give up. </li><li>This makes keeping resolutions an exercise in perfectionism, which can be stressful for anyone. </li><li>If you’d like to maintain resolutions with less stress, create a different format for your goals. </li><li>Take baby steps, build in rewards for your progress, and make a few other minor changes and you will see greater success with less stress.</li></ul>

5. Resolution Perfection

Stressed about resolutions? Learn common sources of New Year's Resolution stress and find strategies for stress relief.

health

Health

habits

Habits

exerciseandfitness

Exercise & Fitness

New Year's Resolutions: From Stressful to Stress-Relieving

<ul><li>Be careful with trading apps - avoid investing through apps that <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/21/robinhood-is-having-a-moment-users-should-be-careful.html">make a game out of investing </a>, particularly short-term investments. Make sure that you have a sizable emergency fund held in an FDIC-insured savings account.</li><li>See a financial therapist - if your relationship with money is strained conifer making an appointment. They help clients process their underlying feelings about money, while making plans for retirement, savings, investments and other goals.</li><li>Monitor your accounts - there's no excuse not to be proactive about cybersecurity. Turn on multi-factor authentication. </li></ul>

<ul><li>Picture your perfect year - take time to reflect on 2021 and think about what, if anything, you'd like to do differently in 2022.</li><li>Track your growth - calculate your net worth is a good start. This is essentially your assets (cash in checking and savings accounts, investments, real estate, cars, etc.) less your debts (student loans, mortgages, overdue credit card bills, etc.). You can use an app like Personal Capital, or an Excel tracking sheet.</li><li>Invest in an index fund - opt to invest in index funds if you’re looking to build wealth. Index funds are designed to track the entire stock market.</li></ul>

<ul><li>Find some inspiration - if your goals are feeling a little stale, search for some new inspiration. Depending on your interests, there are any number of online forums that might appeal to you. </li><li>Ask for what you're worth - one thing we're leaving behind in 2021? Being underpaid for our work.!For many workers, the time has <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/10/how-to-ask-for-a-raise.html">never been better to ask for a raise </a>. Of course, this can be a <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/15/anxious-about-asking-for-a-raise-try-this-.html">nerve-wracking prospect </a>. Make It has plenty of advice on <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/10/how-to-ask-for-a-raise.html">how to prepare for the talk </a>with your manager and <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/08/phrases-to-avoid-when-asking-for-a-raise-and-what-to-say-instead-salary-negotiations-expert.html">get the money you deserve </a>.</li></ul>

<ul><li>Make a plan for your benefits - familiarize yourself with your employer's benefits this year. There could be things available you haven't been aware of, such as financial planning sessions or wellness opportunities.,Don't let them go to waste.</li><li>Do one task you've been putting off - we all have that one thing we know we need to do, yet keep finding ways to push off. Make an effort to finally check that one thing off of your long-term to-do list, whether it's finally <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/25/3-easy-ways-to-make-sure-your-401k-is-on-the-right-track.html">assessing your investment mix and fees </a>or <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/07/its-essential-to-review-your-will-or-estate-plan-every-few-years.html">making an end of life plan</a>.</li></ul>

<ul><li>Schedule a recurring life administration day - dedicate a certain day to reviewing your finances and other <a href="https://lifehacker.com/schedule-a-personal-inventory-day-each-month-1821807681">life administrative tasks on a recurring schedule </a>. Tasks could include checking on spending, rolling over an old 401(k), submitting receipts for reimbursement, returning purchases you don't plan to keep or culling subscriptions. To make the most of this day, keep a list on your phone or somewhere else easily accessible of the tasks you need to accomplish, from reviewing your spending to submitting receipts to checking your net worth.</li></ul>

<ul><li>Learn about crypto - you shouldn't throw all of your money into cryptocurrencies, but at this point, you should take time to learn about them and how they work. </li><li>Figure out your retirement number - Even if you're decades away from retirement, it's important to have an idea of how much you might need stashed away to support yourself after you stop working full time. Remember: Things change. Get an idea of how much you need, but know that it will likely change over time.</li></ul>

<ul><li>Contribute more to your Roth IRA - which let savers contribute money after they have paid taxes on it. Contributions and earnings grow tax-free (assuming investors follow the withdrawal rules), making them particularly powerful investment vehicles for workers in lower tax brackets.</li><li>Prepare for student loan repayments to resume - After a nearly two-year reprieve, federal student loans payments in the US will <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/08/experts-ask-biden-to-push-back-the-return-of-student-loan-payments-.html">resume Feb. 1, 2022</a>. To prepare, financial experts advise <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/15/biden-unlikely-to-extend-student-loan-pausehow-borrowers-can-prepare.html">checking your balance </a>to understand how much you owe each month & work out how to fit it back into your budget.</li></ul>

<ul><li>Increase your savings rate - your savings rate is the percentage of your income that you keep each month, versus the amount that you spend. Increasing it, even slightly, will put you in a better overall financial position. You'll have additional money stashed away for a rainy day, or to put toward your other goals, whether that's buying a house or investing more. Start small: <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/23/why-you-should-increase-your-401k-or-ira-contributions-by-1percent.html">Increase your 401(k) contribution by 1% </a>at the start of each year or cut out one monthly subscription you don't need, and send that money to your savings account instead.</li></ul>

<ul><li>Cut down your expenses - Another way to save a little and ensure you're spending on what's important to you is to rank your expenses. Consider the money you'd save on those expenses, and what it would look like to put it toward one of your goals instead.</li><li>Stop timing the market - when the stock market starts getting rocky, it's natural to want to pull back to "save" money. Rather than letting your nerves get the best of you, think of a <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/07/what-to-do-during-a-down-market.html">down market as a buying opportunity </a>. At the very least, don't get spooked and pull your money out of your investments. Your bottom line will thank you.</li></ul>

Make your money count - consider where your money has gone over the past year or so. Are you happy with how and where you're spending it? If not, make some changes in 2022. That could mean shopping more at local small businesses, cutting out massive retailers like Amazon or <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/21/millennials-spurred-growth-in-esg-investing-now-all-ages-are-on-board.html">looking into sustainable investing </a>. No, your personal expenditures aren't likely to change how the entire world operates. But in many ways, your dollars are your voice. Exercise them with care.

<ul><li>Stop timing the market - when the stock market starts getting rocky, it's natural to want to pull back to "save" money. Rather than letting your nerves get the best of you, think of a <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/07/what-to-do-during-a-down-market.html">down market as a buying opportunity </a>. At the very least, don't get spooked and pull your money out of your investments. Your bottom line will thank you.</li><li>Talk it out - schedule time with your significant other to get on the <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/10/how-to-talk-money-with-your-partner-during-the-coronavirus-pandemic.html">same page about your finances </a>and goals. Not partnered up but still want to talk it out with someone? <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/05/how-to-talk-about-money-with-your-friends.html">Try hosting a money salon </a>— it can be on Zoom — with friends.</li></ul>

From calculating your net worth to making better investments, here are 22 things to do to improve your financial fitness in 2022.

moneyandinvestments

Money & Investments

22 ways to save, invest and get smarter with money in 2022

<ul><li>Elon Musk shared his five crucial pieces of advice for young people who want to thrive in life on a podcast.</li><li>Being useful, not attempting to be a leader, and reading books were among his suggestions.</li></ul>

5 pieces of Advice From Elon Musk

People should "try to be useful."Do things that are useful to your fellow human beings and the world.If someone is living a useful life, "it's a life worth having lived."

1. Be Useful

<ul><li>One should contribute more than one consumes.</li><li>Try to have positive net contributions to society. That is something one should aim for.</li></ul>

2. Contribute To Society

Try not to be a leader for the sake of it."A lot of times, the people you want as leaders are the people who don't want to be leaders."—Musk.

3. Don't Try To Be A Leader

Elon Musk has read through the encyclopedia as a kid.Musk said that "I would encourage people to read a lot of books."<ul><li>Try to ingest as much information as you can.</li><li>Try to also develop a good general knowledge so you at least have a rough lay of the land of the knowledge landscape.</li></ul>

4. Read Books And Ingest Information 

Talk to people from different walks of life and different industries and professions and skills to learn as much as possible.

5. Talk To People

Elon Musk's advice to young people included being useful, not trying to be a leader, and reading books, he said on the Lex Fridman Podcast.

career

Career

startup

Startups

5 crucial pieces of advice from Elon Musk for young people who want to succeed in life.

Psychology generally, and the scientific study of cognition more specifically, have tended until quite recently to focus more on past-oriented cognition (<a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/basics/memory">memor</a>y) and present-oriented cognition (perception) and less on future-oriented/prospective cognition (expectation, anticipation).This has been changing. Increasingly, there is interest in how the brain is oriented to, and perhaps even organized around, forming predictions. And there is interest in developing an evolutionary understanding of why anticipatory cognition is so crucial.

Past-, Present- And Future-Oriented Cognition

The <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/finding-purpose/202009/what-actually-is-consciousness-and-how-did-it-evolve">brain evolved </a>as an adaptation enabling organisms to better perceive and control <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/basics/environment">the environment </a>and their own internal state. Consciousness further enhances this ability by modeling the environment and the self. The ability to make predictions, guided by prospective representations—“if-then” possibilities, greatly enhances this modeling ability. A system that can model the environment and itself well can form simulations of the future environment and its adaptations to that environment.

The Brain Models The Environment And Itself… Into The Future 

In attempting to resolve the seeming enigma of how the brain produces consciousness, it’s important to first understand <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/finding-purpose/201902/what-actually-is-thought-and-how-is-information-physical">"What Actually Is a Thought? And How Is Information Physical?" </a>Thoughts are physical representations or maps. The mind is a kind of map. The brain, and its functional product, the mind, evolved as a map of the body’s relation to its external environment.More evolved brains, such as human ones, can integrate past sensory experiences to form representations of things that are not presently “out there”—predictive simulations.<a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/finding-purpose/201810/what-actually-is-belief-and-why-is-it-so-hard-change">Beliefs </a>are a form of predictive modeling.

Consciousness, Thoughts And… Maps?

Anil Seth, a <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/basics/neuroscience">neuroscientist </a>at the forefront of the serious science of consciousness, explained and developed the concept of the brain as a prediction machine in his book Being You: A New Science of Consciousness .Seth suggested that even our perceptions of what is presently “out there” are, in a sense, just predictions or simulations (what he refers to as “controlled hallucinations”). These are formed by a continual process of updating predictions or assumptions (“best guesses”) as to what the sensory data are perceiving.

From Best Guesses To Controlled Hallucinations

As Seth explained in his popular TED talk:“Perception—figuring out what's there—has to be a process of informed guesswork in which the brain combines these sensory signals with its prior expectations or beliefs about the way the world is to form its best guess of what caused those signals. The brain doesn't hear sound or see light. What we perceive is its best guess of what's out there in the world.”According to this theory, what we perceive is strongly shaped by top-down expectations / predictions, not just by bottom-up sensory input.

When You’re A Brain Inside A Dark Skull, You’re Guessing

In his book, A Thousand Brains, Jeff Hawkins elaborated on how the brain’s knowledge is stored as numerous models or maps of the world. Research by Hawkins’ group has focused on how the brain has thousands of complementary models of each object it perceives.He calls this the “Thousand Brains Theory of <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/basics/intelligence">Intelligence”</a>. Each model operates as a reference frame, physically stored in a tiny cortical column. These complementary reference frames provide “what” and “where” information; acting all together, they provide information about how the different aspects of the object relate to each other.

A Thousand Models Or, A Thousand Brains

So how come we don’t feel like we’re composed of a thousand brains, each with their own independent little model of the world? How come our consciousness feels unified? This is known as the binding problem. Hawkins’ “Thousand Brain Theoryproposes that the cortical columns work together through their connections with each other, some of which are long-range connections crisscrossing the entire neocortex.

The Binding Problem

Through a process akin to “voting,” the different simultaneous models established by different cortical columns encoding perceptions from different reference frames reach a “consensus” best guess (an algorithmic inference) as to what the object is that is being perceived, based on prior learned information (e.g. “the only thing that is consistent with what we’re all perceiving right now, based on the input from all the different senses and from all our different reference frames, is a coffee cup.”).

A “Consensus” Best Guess And Vote

The fact that expectations fundamentally shape perceptions and beliefs explains many of the brain’s most successful features, as well as its many problematic bugs.Seeing is believing. But our perceptions are sometimes wrong. This may lead us to form mistaken (and often, intransigent) beliefs. Equally, believing is seeing—that is, our perceptions are shaped by top-down expectations/assumptions about what we are seeing, hearing, etc. When our prior expectations are mistaken, they powerfully influence us to perceive things in mistaken ways.

Seeing Is Believing. Also, Believing Is Seeing. 

Magicians skillfully exploit our perceptual expectations to entertain and amaze us, as do psychics—some of whom are charlatans, others are themselves true believers—victims of <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/basics/deception">self-deception </a>as much as they are responsible for deceiving others.We, humans, are highly <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/finding-purpose/202103/fashion-suicide-why-we-imitate-each-other">suggestible</a>, which, for many, combines with an incomplete understanding of science and other complex subjects (and an overestimation of that understanding), leading to beliefs in paranormal phenomena, mystical experiences, and other weird beliefs (including conspiracies), confused as to what is real and what is not.

Optical Illusions And Delusions

Mistaken expectations play a role in many mental disorders. <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/basics/anxiety">Anxiety </a>and <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/basics/depression">depression</a>, the most common mental disorders, are characterized by, and some would say partly caused by, faulty expectations of, or predictions about, the future—overestimation of threat or failure.Furthermore, expectations and <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/basics/unconscious">unconscious </a>biases in processing bodily sensations play an important role in functional neurological disorders (conversion disorders), and in other psychosomatic disorders. And expectations most certainly play a central role in the ubiquitous phenomenon of <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/basics/placebo">placebo </a>response.

Mistaken Expectations And Disorders

<ul><li>Psychology has focused a lot on how the past causes our present behavior. But the future can cause the present too, via prediction / simulation.</li><li>The brain is constantly making predictions. Consciousness enhances the brain's ability to form predictive models of the environment and the self.</li><li>Faulty top-down influence of expectation on perception shapes illusions, weird beliefs, anxiety, depression, psychosomatics, placebos, and more.</li></ul>

The Takeaway

When you’re a brain inside a dark skull, guessing what’s presently “out there” is a form of prediction. What happens when you believe what you predict?

Part 1: Expectations shape many key features of brain and behavior.

philosophy

Philosophy

mindfulness

Mindfulness

The Brain as a Prediction Machine: The Key to Consciousness?

1. “Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.” - Aristotle

2. “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” - Aristotle

3. “Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.” - Aristotle

4. “No great mind has ever existed without a touch of madness.” - Aristotle

5. “Happiness depends upon ourselves.” - Aristotle

6. “Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.” - Aristotle

7. “Patience is bitter, but it’s fruit is sweet.” - Aristotle

8. “Those who know, do. Those that understand, teach.” - Aristotle

9. “He who has overcome his fears will truly be free.” - Aristotle

10. “The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living differ from the dead.” - Aristotle

11. “It is not enough to win a war; it is more important to organize the peace.”- Aristotle

12. “To write well, express yourself like the common people, but think like a wise man.” - Aristotle

13. “For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them.” - Aristotle

14. “The more you know, the more you know you don't know.” - Aristotle

15. “The energy of the mind is the essence of life.” - Aristotle

motivationandinspiration

Motivation & Inspiration

15 Life changing lessons from Aristotle

Three important points to help you perform better:
<ul>
<li>When you’re in flow, five neurochemicals are released simultaneously.</li>
<li>For flow to happen, some parts of your brain must be switched off, not on.</li>
<li>What we think is possible changes every time we see a new achievement, which is why flow is so important.</li>
</ul>

Flow: Performing Like Superman

Five strong chemicals are released, all at once, when you’re in flow:<ul><li>Dopamine, which gets you excited about new ideas, while helping you filter what’s important from the noise.</li><li>Norepinephrine, which increases your heartbeat, blood sugar and breathing speed, to give you energy and attention to the task at hand.</li><li>Anandamide, which works a little bit like cannabis, thus getting your brain to make more new connections and be creative.</li><li>Endorphins, which absolves you from physical pain, because it’s 100 times stronger than morphine.</li><li>Serotonin, which causes the glowing feeling after you achieve a goal.</li></ul>

The Flow High

Another factor, which is part of the flow experience, is something called transient hypofrontality. What this complicated expression means is simply that for a short time (transient) your preFRONTal cortex is less (hypo) active.The prefrontal cortex is part of the neocortex, which, in turn, is the “youngest” part of our brain, evolutionary speaking. This is where all complex thinking happens (like you crunching numbers to decide which house you want to buy), and it’s what allows us to think rationally about our feelings and be self-aware.

Transient Hypofrontality

Another part that slows down during flow is your orientation adjustment area, the part of the brain that lets you assess your position in the world, relative to other objects around you.
This is what causes surfers to feel “as if they’re one with the wave” or writers to just “think their words onto the paper.”

Orientation Adjustment Area

Bannister was the first man to run a mile in under 4 minutes. Before he accomplished this in 1954, for decades people had thought a 4 minute mile simply wasn’t possible. 
However, once he did, someone else did it just two months after him. His record was broken again twice within the next five years and ten years later a high school student ran a 4 minute mile.

Roger Bannister Effect

Every time someone accomplishes something we think is impossible, our definition of that word changes. 
Great achievements inspire us to go beyond them and achieve even more, and that’s what makes flow so important. Without it, humans would stop pushing the boundaries of performance.

Impossible Is So Yesterday

Ten core components that indicate the Flow state:
<ul>
<li>Clear goals</li>
<li>Concentration</li>
<li>A loss of self consciousness</li>
<li>Distorted sense of time</li>
<li>Direct and immediate feedback</li>
<li>Balance between ability level and challenge</li>
<li>A sense of personal control over the situation</li>
<li>Intrinsically rewarding so action is effortless</li>
<li>Lack of awareness of bodily needs</li>
<li>Absorption, narrowing of awareness down to the activity.</li>
</ul>

The Core Components

<ul>
<li>As flow requires focus, one of the first changes suggested by experts was the removal of cubicle farms, those open office plans that permit constant interruption.</li>
<li>Studies have shown that each time a flow state is disrupted it takes fifteen minutes to get back into flow, if you can get back at all.</li>
<li>A shy man need only cross the room to say hello to an attractive woman to trigger this rush.</li>
</ul>

Hacking Flow

Flow appears near the emotional midpoint between boredom and anxiety, in what scientists call the flow channel— the spot where the task is hard enough to make us stretch but not hard enough to make us snap.
How hard is that? Answers vary, but the general thinking is about 4 percent. That’s it. That’s the sweet spot. If you want to trigger flow, the challenge should be 4 percent greater than the skills.

The Midpoint

The US military trained snipers in flow twice as fast as normal. McKinsey established that executives in flow are five times more effective than their steady-state peers. 
This is exactly what 150 years of flow research has revealed; this is what the recent revolution in action and adventure sports clearly demonstrates, flow brings out the very best in us— and for certain, it’s that very best we’ll need to create a world of abundance.

The Bottomline

Most people live in a very restricted circle of their potential being. They make use of a very small portion of their possible consciousness, and of their soul’s resources in general, much like a man who, out of his whole organism, should get into a habit of using and moving only his little finger.

Using years of research and interviews with adventure sports athletes, the New York Times best-selling author of Abundance and A Small, Fury Prayer attempts to unlock the secrets to ultimate human performance and the state of consciousness called “flow." 25,000 first printing.

books

Books

An exploration of how extreme athletes break the limits of ultimate human performance and what we can learn from their mastery of the state of consciousness known as "flow" In this groundbreaking book, New York Times-bestselling author Steven Kotler decodes the mystery of ultimate human performance. Drawing on over a decade of research and first-hand interviews with dozens of top action and adventure sports athletes such as big-wave legend Laird Hamilton, big-mountain snowboarder Jeremy Jones, and skateboarding pioneer Danny Way, Kotler explores the frontier science of "flow," an optimal state of consciousness where we perform and feel our best.Building a bridge between the extreme and the mainstream, The Rise of Superman explains how these athletes are using flow to do the impossible and how we can use this information to radically accelerate our performance in our own lives. At its core, this is a book about profound possibility, what is actually possible for our species, and where--if anywhere--our limits lie.

Steven Kotler

The Rise of Superman

The Rise of Superman: Decoding the Science of Ultimate Human Performance

First pick your goals, then figure out which motivation hacks to use on the subtasks that lead to those goals—and then use far more of them than you need, so that you not only succeed, but that you do so with excitement and joy.
The Formula: Motivation = (Expectancy x Value) / (Impulsiveness x Delay)
<ul>
<li>Expectancy = confidence of success.</li>
<li>Value = how rewarding a task will be when you finish it & how fun it is when you’re doing it.</li>
<li>Impulsiveness = distractibility, how likely you are to put a task off and do something more pressing.</li>
<li>Delay = how far off the reward seems to be.</li>
</ul>

The Hack Technique

By increasing Expectancy or Value, or decreasing Impulsiveness or Delay, you hack motivation.

The will is a process of making personal rules for ourselves that will help us reach our goals, and how much willpower we can muster is precisely how good we are at setting up these personal rules so that we prefer to keep our rules than break them.

Willpower

<ul><li>Make a tiny achievable goal that you can’t forget to do.</li><li>Track your success doing this goal.</li><li>Give your goal a completion date.</li><li>Once you complete your goal, up it to a bigger goal.</li></ul>Focus on input based process goals (write for five minutes) rather than output-based results goals (write one page). And keep the required inputs minimal at first.

The Success Spiral

The four most expensive words in the English language are, “This time it’s different"

<ul>
<li>Precommitment: Using a commitment device to choose now to limit your options later, preventing yourself from making the wrong choice in the face of temptation. Putting money on the line, publicly announcing your goals, etc.</li>
<li>Burnt Ships: List out all of your possible distractions, and then make it so that it’s impossible to do those things when you want to be working toward your other goals. This saves you from having to use willpower to resist them.</li>
<li>Rejection Therapy: Get over your fear of starting things by going out and trying to get rejected by asking for odd things from people.</li>
</ul>

The Playbook Of Motivation Hacking

Imagine your ideal day. What do you do? Whom do you talk to? Where do you go? Pick a few goals that will bring you closer to that ideal day.Make a list of every crazy goal you can think of. Then rate each goal on three factors: how much the goal excites you, your probability of success if you tried as hard as you could, and how long it would take in hours. Sort them by excitement x probability of success / time and pick the most efficient goals.Imagine you’re another person more competent than yourself who has just dropped into your current life at this moment with none of your issues.

Exercise: Goal Picking

<ul><li>Challenging (motivating and exciting)</li><li>Specific (not abstract)</li><li>Immediate (avoid long-delayed goals and focus on what you can do now)</li><li>Approach-oriented (as opposed to avoidance goals)</li></ul>If you track your happiness during activities, you’ll get a more accurate picture of how much you enjoyed it without giving in to the peak-end effect.

The CSI Approach

<ul><li>Get excited about a skill</li><li>While you’re excited, make time and hack up motivation to practice it</li><li>Learn how to practice it from reading or from a teacher</li><li>Start doing it right away</li></ul>Whatever goals you pick, you should have some way of measuring the results. Many goals are about making you happier, so make sure you’re measuring your happiness.

How To Learn Any Skill

<ul><li>Success Spirals: Win at something small then keep leveling it up</li><li>Vicarious Victory: Hang out with motivated people</li><li>Mental Contrasting: Visualize the success you want to have and then contrast it with where you are now</li><li>Guarding Against Excessive Optimism: Don’t get trapped by the planning fallacy</li></ul>

Increasing Expectancy

<ul><li>Find Flow</li><li>Find Meaning: Look for ways to connect tasks to major life goals</li><li>CSI Approach goals(mentioned above)</li><li>Optimize Your Energy</li><li>Productive Procrastination: If you can’t do your main work, get other little tasks out of the way</li><li>Create Rewards: When you succeed, celebrate it, by congratulating yourself or giving yourself a treat</li><li>Focus on Passion: Know what you’re passionate about and steer your life towards those passions</li><li>Task Trading: If you don’t want to do something find someone who will trade that task with you</li></ul>

Increasing Value

<ul><li>Make a recommitment</li><li>Burn your ships</li><li>Set goal reminders</li><li>Timebox your tasks</li><li>Build useful habits</li><li>Schedule play before work, so you know when you’re taking a break</li></ul>

Reducing Impulsiveness

<ul><li>Break your goals down so the ends feel nearer</li><li>Let yourself plan fallaciously so you’re more motivated</li></ul>

Reducing Delay

To precommit is to choose now to limit your options later, preventing yourself from making the wrong choice in the face of temptation. Publicly announcing your goal is a common form of precommitment.

The motivation hacker learns to steer his life towards higher Value and to have fun demolishing boring necessities in his way.

"This is your field guide to getting yourself to want to do everything you always wanted to want to do"--Page [4] of cover.

"Moderation in all things," they say. That may keep a society together, but it's not the protagonist's job. The Motivation Hacker shows you how to summon extreme amounts of motivation to accomplish anything you can think of. From precommitment to rejection therapy, this is your field guide to getting yourself to want to do everything you always wanted to want to do. I wrote this book in three months while simultaneously attempting seventeen other missions, including running a startup, launching a hit iPhone app, learning to write 3,000 new Chinese words, training to attempt a four-hour marathon from scratch, learning to skateboard, helping build a successful cognitive testing website, being best man at two weddings, increasing my bench press by sixty pounds, reading twenty books, going skydiving, helping to start the Human Hacker House, learning to throw knives, dropping my 5K time by five minutes, and learning to lucid dream. I planned to do all this while sleeping eight hours a night, sending 1,000 emails, hanging out with a hundred people, going on ten dates, buying groceries, cooking, cleaning, and trying to raise my average happiness from 6.3 to 7.3 out of 10. How? By hacking my motivation.

Nick Winter

The Motivation Hacker

Introspection is blind to construction. This does not mean that our introspective guesses are never accurate, just as you might guess the correct answer to a multiple-choice question. 
When you don’t know the actual facts about yourself, your consciousness pieces together a compelling story, much in the same way it does when you’re trying to read the minds of other people to make sense of why they act as they do. 
Introspection makes us feel like we know what’s going on in our own heads, even when we don’t. We don't realize that we’re spinning a story rather than reporting the facts.

We Are Strangers To Ourselves

Mindwise Book Summary explores why we see human motivations in inanimate objects, why we fight others and why we are strangers to ourselves. If you’re interested in human behaviour and why people separate others into groups, this is the book for you.

An exploration of the human mind's capacity for instinctive understanding about the feelings and desires of others explains how the ability or inability to understand the minds of those around us leads to connection or conflict.

Mindwise

Find  Self Improvement Tips - Curated from popular Books like Atomic Habits, 48 Rules of Power, Deep Work, Rich Dad Poor Dad and way more!