Summer at Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve in Alaska is short but sweet. Vibrant colors radiate during long days and caribou, bears, wolves, muskox and fox roam the landscape past mountains and rivers yet to be named. With no roads or trails, the remote park demands visitors to be self-sufficient. The beauty and solitude is their reward. Photo by National Park Service.
Have you ever gotten excited about your New Year’s resolutions only to have them fizzle out mere weeks after? This is a common enough story and we’ve all been there. When the “fresh start effect” fades away, your determination falters and the first bump on the road often signals the end of the journey.
So, what can we do to keep our motivation high for the longer run? Here are 4 great ways to stay motivated.
If you want to feel motivated in the long term, choose a goal with your heart. When an objective comes from your heart, it will be easier to stick with it through tough times. You will make sacrifices more readily when it is clear what you are making them for.
Dig inside yourself and get in touch with the vision that you have behind your goal. If your objective is to eat healthy or exercise, what is your underlying vision? Maybe a vision of yourself in good health, fit, slim and happy.
Whatever that vision is, take a moment to visualize the person you aspire to build. It will help you see meaning in everything you do.
For example, why would you put your sneakers on and go for a run instead of watching a TV series? The sofa might be more tempting than the effort. However, if you go back to your vision, the choice will come effortlessly.
Go after goals which are genuinely yours and you will find plenty of motivation to make them happen.
See Also: How to Set Personal SMART Goals To Succeed
One day, I checked my own goals and tried to determine what the difference was between those that I achieved easily and those I seemed to struggled with. And I found a clear pattern.
I have a few long-term goals, like maintaining a certain weight or getting a new degree before I reach 40. I realized that I do well with the first one, less so with the second one.
Why do I seem to have a two-speed motivation?
I’m not less motivated in getting a new degree. The problem is that I have nowhere to start from. My weight goal, on the other hand, is linked to short-term goals or habits, such as eating 5 servings of fruits or vegetables per day, eating fish twice a week and exercising at least four times a week. These daily and weekly habits help me reach my long-term objective.
I haven’t set any corresponding habit for my degree goal. And I’m not going to achieve it just by looking at it…
The secret of success lies in the things we do regularly, like our daily and weekly habits. These habits must be aligned with the vision we have.
Having a vision is not enough. It must be translated into small daily steps. If we only have a vision or a long-term goal, we will feel overwhelmed by the mission and we won’t know where to start from.
Sometimes, it’s the other way round and we struggle to ingrain new habits. In that case, the long-term goal may be missing. For example, it’s much easier to find the motivation to go for a run when you have registered for a race or when you aim at getting your beach body back in time for the summer season!
The alignment between habits and a long-term vision works both ways. Having habits that are aligned to a long-term objective gives us the motivation to reach the end goal and sustain good habits.
When you struggle with one of your goals, check whether it’s a habit or a long-term goal. If it’s a habit, make sure that you have a corresponding vision. Why do you want to ingrain this habit?
If it’s a long-term goal that you struggle with, try and set up a daily or weekly habit that will help you get there.
See Also: 7 Habits I Started Last Year That Dramatically Changed My Life
We all know that we are more motivated to do something when there is a reward at stake. The pleasure induced by a reward reinforces the activity which helped get the reward. This is called extrinsic motivation. It can be helpful to kick-start the process when intrinsic motivation is a bit low.
A simple way to introduce rewards is to plan/get/offer the rewards yourself. You need to set the bar properly. You need to do a decent effort to get it.
It can’t be too difficult or you may end up feeling discouraged. It can’t be too easy or you’ll get the reward without the need for motivation.
You also need to define a goal or reward system that makes sense. Eating junk food for a week if you manage to lose three kilos is probably not the best choice! Ideally, the reward and the effort should be somehow aligned. This will help create a virtuous circle.
Buying a smaller dress when you lose a few kilos and getting a massage after a few weeks of physical training are good examples. These rewards will help you build milestones on your path to a better you. They’ll become the symbols of your positive behavior change.
We can also keep motivated to reach our goals by changing goals!
Goals must be alive and reassessed regularly. It’s important to realize that because monotony is a big motivation killer.
When we set a new goal, we generally improve quite rapidly at the beginning. If you start exercising two or three times a week, you’ll be able to notice progress session after session. Then, it’ll get harder to improve and the progression curve gets less steep. This can be a little demotivating.
We can introduce excitement by having a few stable goals combined with some temporary ones. I want to lose weight, wake up early, exercise and read regularly. These are my core goals which I’m keeping for the long run. In addition to these core goals, I’ll try other things, such as journaling for a month, then learning chess, or cooking, etc.
You may sometimes adjust your goals down. If one of my goals is to play the guitar for 2 hours a week while I barely manage to play more than 30 minutes for a few weeks in a row, I may lose my motivation to eventually hit the target. In such a case, I may be well inspired to target 1 hour instead.
When the target is a little higher than what we are already doing, it pushes us to take a small step and fill the gap. When the target is too high, it becomes counter-productive. Why would I do an extra step if I stay so far anyway?
You can also give up on a goal when you don’t feel like pursuing it anymore or when you have already ingrained the habit and don’t need to monitor it any longer. Our aspirations evolve over time.
When a goal doesn’t make you dream anymore, it’s often better to let it go than drag it along painfully. You shouldn’t feel guilty about giving up goals as it’s natural. But, that doesn’t mean we should stop as soon as the first difficulty arises. It’s a matter of balance.
It is also a good idea to take breaks at times, hit the pause button and do something else. It can be very beneficial. Even professional athletes take a break between two seasons in order to recover physically and mentally. They get back to training all pumped up for the new season.
Do the same when you feel tired. It will help you get refreshed and hungry.
Don’t forget to set a date for your come back though!
Once a month or every other month, try and take an “appointment with yourself” and review your goals. Assess what works well, update your goals and refine your strategies. These are some of the best ways to stay motivated and reignite your desire to go ahead.
The post 4 Powerful Ways To Stay Motivated And Reach Your Goals Through Tough Times appeared first on Dumb Little Man.
Through a small and yet infinitely beautiful stone path we arrive at this home, which has created a space that is simultaneously open and closed. It has beautiful terraces with floors of raw wood and walls of stone that give it a charming rustic look. From its terraces and gardens, both of which are meticulously cared for, we have a beautiful view of the surrounding landscape. As if it had..
The post Mixed Space House Designed by Bergemeisterwolf Architekten appeared first on HomeDSGN.
“It’s impossible.”
“It will cost too much money and time.”
“Your ideas always sound stupid.”
“Your plan is going to fail. Your last project failed and this will, too’.
If your boss is always making those statements, you probably have a negative boss.
The truth is, there are different types of bosses. There’s the good, the bad, the crazy and the ugly. A negative boss ranks somewhere between crazy and ugly. Bosses in this category never believe any good will come out of your ideas, plans or projects at the firm.
Well, the real problem isn’t just the boss’ negativity, but the probability of you becoming less productive and more pessimistic.
Now, here is the good news. You can always say no to negativity.
Below are three easy ways to stay positive when dealing with a difficult boss.
“Be cautious of what you feed your mind and soul. Fuel yourself with positivity and let that fuel propel you into positive action.” – Steve Maraboli
The stress of a negative boss should propel you to feed your mind constantly with positivity. There are so many ways to tap into positivity. You can take up meditation, prayer, or strongly tell yourself words of affirmation. The main deal is making the positive outweigh the negative in your head.
This simple method helped my friend Nick stay positive at his job. Nick had a negative boss who tended to get abusive. There was a time he called Nick daft in a meeting and ordered him to shut up and sit. Despite that, Nick never lost his smile and his secret was positive affirmations.
He started telling himself that he was brilliant. He reminded himself that he graduated at the top of his class and he called himself world-class material. Six months later, Nick resigned and joined an international organization as a team leader.
While your boss reminds you constantly of your weakness, remind yourself constantly of your strengths and harness them. Your mind is your greatest tool, so sharpen it with positive thoughts always.
See Also: 4 Ways To Reduce Stress Inside and Outside of Work
“Never assume that every critic is a hater. Not everyone is hating on you. Some people are telling you the truth.” – Harvey Specter
Although your boss is a cynic, his views may sometimes be honest criticism. To maintain a positive mindset in spite of constant criticism, you should be your first critic. Always find and fill the loopholes in your idea before presenting it to your boss.
A negative boss will look for all the reasons why your idea cannot work. Instead of feeling bad about it and letting the criticism snowball into negativity, beat it by stating the potential problems of your plan and offer solutions.
Imagine a case where your boss points out to four problems with your idea and you immediately give four solutions. The boss would have no choice but to agree with you and that would be your win.
“I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet.” – Mahatma Gandhi
Negativity spreads very fast and before you can say “Trump”, you have become a pessimist. To prevent this, limit personal communication with the negative boss. Do not let him get into your mind. Ban him from bringing down your self-esteem and don’t get all cozy and personal.
Your boss probably spent years becoming negative and it would take an even longer time for him to become positive. While talking positively may help brighten up your boss, his own thoughts may drag you down. It is better to recommend a psychologist instead of becoming an emotional punching bag.
“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.
It is always easier to run from negative bosses than stay positive in the same work environment. However, you never know what annoying habits your next boss may have. So, take the tough route and build some emotional muscle in dealing with a difficult boss while you’re looking for better opportunities.
See Also: 5 Simple Lessons to Break the Shackles of People’s Negativity
The post 3 Easy Ways To Stay Positive When Dealing With A Difficult Boss appeared first on Dumb Little Man.
The demand of rural housing is rising all the time, since every day more and more people decide to move to the spectacular mountainous area of Gyeonggi-do, South Korea. The site on which the rock house was located is also one of the rural housing sites developed in this way. Particularly, the greatest advantage of developing a mountainous area into a building site is ensuring the open view based on..
The post Rural house in the Spectacular Mountains of Gyeonggi-do, South Korea appeared first on HomeDSGN.
The French people in Édouard Louis’s The End of Eddy are not the French that you know. Here you will not find immaculately styled Parisians talking literature or politics at the café. The French in The End of Eddy are not the French whose diet and sophistication are celebrated in how-to guides, whose delicacies of taste and care with cuisine are touted as an example to all us lesser folk.
The “other” French we meet in The End of Eddy live not in Paris or Cannes or Nice but in Picardy, in a village called Hallencourt, somewhere in the post-industrial north of France. Their lives are defined largely by constant and unrelenting need. The events in the book, as the author Édouard Louis has recounted in several interviews, are all true, and they are also terrifying. At their center is the young Eddy Bellegueule (the novelistic incarnation of Louis himself), a boy whose early effeminacy renders him the target of beatings at school and taunts at home. Louis renders both with chilling acuity: his tormentors at school are “tall with red hair and the second, short with a hunchback” who spit in his face and accost him in the same hallway every day. He knows he will be hit, but he also returns every day to “avoid being hit elsewhere,” where he will face the added humiliation of being hit “in front of others.” Those who do not hit him pelt him with torrents of verbal abuse, “faggot, fairy, cocksucker, punk, pansy sissy” and so on, all day and every day.
There is more humiliation awaiting Eddy in his slovenly home. His father, who prides himself on being a “tough” guy, rarely shies from violence and is bent on ensuring that his son grows up to be a “tough” guy, too. It is not to be a successful endeavor, and the man does not take it well. As he grows, Eddy can feel “the terror mounting” in his father and is witness to the man’s “powerlessness in the face of the monster he had created and whose oddity became clearer with each passing day.” Thwarted thus by reality, Eddy’s father turns to cruelty. Laid off from his job at the brass factory that is Hallencourt’s sole employer, he assails Eddy with his virulent homophobia. One evening, Eddy returns to find him drunk with his buddies in the family’s small and grimy living room. Instead of their usual favorite, The Wheel of Fortune, the louts have tuned to a show that features a gay character named “Steevy.” Homophobic jokes and laughter abound, and as . Eddy is scurrying by, his father says, “Hey Steevy hows it goin? How was school?” The men laugh so much that they have tears in their eyes. . Eddy, for whom “crying is not an option,” tries simply not to respond at all to the taunts.
There are in fact very few options for anyone in Hallencourt. The intimate drama of Eddy’s struggle vis-à-vis his sexuality is set against a larger landscape of constraint and claustrophobia that we rarely reflected in literature on or about France. Eddy and his family live in a four-room home with concrete floors and mold crawling up the walls. There are as many television sets as there are rooms, and one of them is always on. A book, however, is an object of suspicion, “an assault,” and so is conversation using fancy words or even very correct French (the family is better at speaking a northern Picardy dialect). Caring too much about homework or books or getting ahead in the world is frowned upon, as it would perhaps be in any milieu where improvement is unlikely and the odds too many. Some do make halfhearted attempts. Eddy’s older sister tells her school counselor that she wants to be a Spanish teacher. He convinces her otherwise; she doesn’t seem to have the grades, he notes. She engages in some feeble persistence, then settles for working the till at the village bakery. There she will be guaranteed a paycheck.
The American infatuation with France demands a France that is markedly different from itself, never common nor louche, always avant-garde and forever superior. The End of Eddy is a dislocation of this arrangement. The post-industrial France within its covers, one in which Eddy is named after the American shows his father has watched on television, is much like post-industrial America. Like their similarly disenchanted counterparts in rural Kentucky or Wisconsin or Kansas, both Eddy’s parents are casualties of a provincialism they long to escape but whose failings in both education and expectation doom their chances of doing so. They rail at the television, at life, at their children, they drink and curse and fight, and for the most part they stay put, sentencing their children to the same cycle of despair. Angry but confused, they lob their hatreds at Arabs and Muslims and blacks and, of course, homosexuals. As Louis notes, there is a central contradiction in their behavior: his mother, for instance, rails against the powers that be, whose neglect is the nub of her misery, yet invokes those same powers to act with “ruthlessness in dealing with Arabs, with alcohol, with drugs, with any sexual behavior” of which she doesn’t approve.
These disinherited of France (and their American and Dutch and British counterparts) present an emerging political class, a new grouping of the West’s discontents. As Louis implies and Americans know, their exclusion is not without consequence, their anger increasingly a basis of electoral change. The results of the 2017 French election substantiate this; even while Emmanuel Macron has eked out a victory, Marine Le Pen’s National Front, the candidate Hallecourt’s citizens have proudly supported for decades, is second in line. It is a reality that could not have been imagined a decade ago.
The End of Eddy ends with an end to the Eddy that once was. Eddy Bellegueule tries hard to be straight and belong; he hangs out with college mates and goes to clubs to meet girls, enacting the initiation rituals of heterosexuality that will reassure his parents. He even pursues sexual relationships with women, and when they fail, he finally confronts the incongruity between his desire to “become a tough guy” and the “desire of his own body,” which pushes him toward men. The pathos of the tussle, poignantly portrayed, lies not simply in the internalized homophobia that has led him to so detest himself, but in the realization that owning the truth of his sexuality inevitably pushes him “away from my family away from the whole village.” The embrace of one part of him is the rejection of another.
He must choose, however, and he does. As he declares at the beginning of the book’s last chapter, “I had to get away.” Eddy leaves, thus breaking a cycle that has kept so many in his family confined to Hallecourt all their lives. We glimpse this other Eddy for a moment in the Epilogue. Away from the suffocations of the village, he is surrounded by the bourgeoisie, the denizens of that “other” France that America and the world know and love and copy. Among them, he owns his sexuality but remains ashamed of his class. In the last pages of the book, the jacket his mother has so proudly bought him to take to lycée is laughed at; ashamed, he throws it in the trash. At the end of The End of Eddy, as all though life itself, there is no complete self-acceptance, no final liberation; for Eddy and for everyone, the struggle to love oneself is always contradictory and never complete.
The post The End of Eddy appeared first on The Barnes & Noble Review.
The Barnes & Noble Review http://ift.tt/2uwxOJV
You’re reading 10 Liberating Tactics to Unshackle Yourself From the Slavery of Choice, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’re enjoying this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.
We are all slaves to choice. We’re overwhelmed with it in shops, online, with reviews, with dating apps, on TV, with online music streaming – the list goes on!
Choice is an evil master who peddles the dream of unimaginable freedom. At the same time, he grinds us down, plays on our weaknesses and emotionally manipulates us. He passively aggressively screws us out of our hard-earned cash.
Choice brainwashes us into believing that he is offering self-expression, autonomy and the right to be an individual. In his cloying kindness he tricks us into believing that the more options we have the better and that if we are willing to put the time in, we can find the perfect solution to every problem and every want or desire.
Choice plays to our fears in that he always promises that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. That, if we just look a little bit harder, we’ll be able to find something better, at a keener price or with more unique features. He knows that we’re weak and easily seduced by the new and shiny. Rather than nurturing our acceptance of our lot, he offers upgrades and options that will suck us dry. He knows our insatiable quest for something meaningful to fill the bottomless pit of our consumerist vacuum lives.
Choice is like a sweetly smiling benevolent granny who gives in to a petulant child’s every whim. Who stuffs them full of candy, constantly buys them toys and feeds them as much junk food as they can devour whilst slyly squandering every last penny of their pocket money as they are distracted, gorging themselves in their gluttony.
Choice even goes as far, and how sick is this, as pretending to recognize our pain, pretending to be sympathetic. He tries to pretend he cares and nurtures us by saying “I know that this is all a bit overwhelming, here let me help you” and, in a perverse display of shallow self-serving piety, offers us “suggest” options. “You liked this so you may like this”, or “other people who chose this chose this”. “Because you listened to/watched”……..
And you know what, choice will only suggest nice safe options that won’t challenge you, stimulate you or widen your horizons. It’s in choice’s best interest to keep you in a box, to offer you unchallenging, familiar titbits because he knows that you will almost inevitably take the line of least resistance. If he offers you anything too new or different he’s scared you won’t take the bait and he won’t get paid.
F*ck you, choice.
I don’t want to waste my time with you, get stressed with you and fill your pockets without any benefit to myself. I don’t have to feel the inevitable creep of your paralyzing, overwhelming fingers every time I need to make a decision. I don’t need you to tell me what the hell I might like or not like based on you shoe horning me into a damn box and slapping a label on me. I don’t need you making me feel inadequate, playing to my fears that there may always be something better. I don’t have to always feel slightly disappointed with my decisions because there were 800 other options and the chances that one of those would have been better.
We are all only capable of making so many decisions per day. After we reach our limit we become simply “choiced out”. Why would we waste our resources being forced into making trivial choices all the time when we need to save our brain power for the important decisions each day? Steve Jobs basically wore the same clothes every day to eliminate the stress of making decisions about the small things in life so that he could concentrate on the bigger picture.
Here are some suggestions of ways to relieve the burden of decision making.
1.Do you really need to make the decision? If you think you need something or you need to replace something, think again. Have you really explored and used the old version to it’s fullest extent? What difference will getting a new one really make? Will it really improve your life and make you happier in the long term?
Shopping for new things and indulging in choosing is like riding a sugar high, it’s addictive and short-lived and is followed by a slump. The most exciting part of a new purchase is the anticipation. Most of the time, a week later, and after having paid for it, the new item is all but forgotten.
2.When making a decision always keep the end objective in mind and try not to be seduced by things that you don’t really need. Be ruthlessly focussed at all times. Ask yourself what you’re trying to achieve by making the decision and always try to focus in on the benefits that will help you achieve your objective.
3.If you are really struggling with too many choices then go back to your core values and see if you can narrow down the options by aligning the decision with what you truly believe in. You might be extremely environmentally conscious for example, which might help in your decision, or perhaps love a particular style or era.
4.Decide if it’s a small or a big decision and grant it attention accordingly. It can become so easy to spend far too long and far too many resources on relatively trivial decisions purely because there are so many options available. Similarly, don’t be rushed into making big decisions. It’s easy to become emotionally involved and to make choices in the heat of the moment. If possible step back a while, take the heat out of the situation and choose objectively.
5. Give yourself a time boundary for choosing. Before you even begin, think objectively about how much time you are reasonably willing to invest in making the decision and stick to it.
6. Accept that you are not going to get 100% perfect. Release yourself from choice’s terrible claws and accept that 70 – 80% of perfect will be fine. After all, that’s probably 70 – 80% better than you have now. We are gradually becoming conditioned to strive for perfection, it’s incredibly stressful, debilitating and bad for our self-esteem. Perfection isn’t necessary or realistic in most circumstances and it can be liberating to accept this.
7. Start by eliminating the bad options. The one’s that obviously won’t work for you leaving you with at least a reduced list of possibilities. It can be really tempting to look at every single choice, just in the fear that you might miss something. It’s such a waste of time doing this.
8. Grab a piece of paper and a pen, divide into two columns and list pros and cons for each possible option. It’s a simple but powerful exercise and often getting things out of your head and onto paper can help clarify your thinking and be far less stressful.
9. Get someone else’s opinion. Often you can become so caught up in choice paralysis that you can’t see clearly. Just verbalizing your options and chatting them through with a trusted friend will help.
10. Think into the future and imagine your life after making each of the choice options. To a certain extent, you might feel that they will have little long term impact which will help put things in perspective a bit but try to think about what your life will be like depending on each of the choices you make.
And finally, my own particular bugbear.
Don’t follow “suggestions”. They are a sanitized reality and will only lead you down an unfulfilling pathway of sameness. We need to explore, try new things and experience things we don’t already know so that we can form opinions and grow. Be your own person, make your own decisions and don’t blindly follow an algorithm that pretends to care for you but just wants your money. We are all explorers, sameness is comforting but dull and stagnant. Try to tap into how you are actually feeling and decide what you feel you would benefit from watching or listening to.
Remember you should never be a slave to choice. In fact, choice should be subservient to you, take control, trust your own judgement, let go of the fantasy of perfection and enjoy the freedom!
Andrew Hind is a Dad to three teenage girls, photographer and musician as well as a keen cyclist. He is also the blogger at http://ift.tt/2riWwxz a blog about cycling, life and thriving. You can also connect at http://ift.tt/2v1LEXV
Photo credit: Alison Donovan Rouse
You’ve read 10 Liberating Tactics to Unshackle Yourself From the Slavery of Choice, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’ve enjoyed this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.
You’re reading 10 Liberating Tactics to Unshackle Yourself From the Slavery of Choice, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’re enjoying this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.
We are all slaves to choice. We’re overwhelmed with it in shops, online, with reviews, with dating apps, on TV, with online music streaming – the list goes on!
Choice is an evil master who peddles the dream of unimaginable freedom. At the same time, he grinds us down, plays on our weaknesses and emotionally manipulates us. He passively aggressively screws us out of our hard-earned cash.
Choice brainwashes us into believing that he is offering self-expression, autonomy and the right to be an individual. In his cloying kindness he tricks us into believing that the more options we have the better and that if we are willing to put the time in, we can find the perfect solution to every problem and every want or desire.
Choice plays to our fears in that he always promises that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. That, if we just look a little bit harder, we’ll be able to find something better, at a keener price or with more unique features. He knows that we’re weak and easily seduced by the new and shiny. Rather than nurturing our acceptance of our lot, he offers upgrades and options that will suck us dry. He knows our insatiable quest for something meaningful to fill the bottomless pit of our consumerist vacuum lives.
Choice is like a sweetly smiling benevolent granny who gives in to a petulant child’s every whim. Who stuffs them full of candy, constantly buys them toys and feeds them as much junk food as they can devour whilst slyly squandering every last penny of their pocket money as they are distracted, gorging themselves in their gluttony.
Choice even goes as far, and how sick is this, as pretending to recognize our pain, pretending to be sympathetic. He tries to pretend he cares and nurtures us by saying “I know that this is all a bit overwhelming, here let me help you” and, in a perverse display of shallow self-serving piety, offers us “suggest” options. “You liked this so you may like this”, or “other people who chose this chose this”. “Because you listened to/watched”……..
And you know what, choice will only suggest nice safe options that won’t challenge you, stimulate you or widen your horizons. It’s in choice’s best interest to keep you in a box, to offer you unchallenging, familiar titbits because he knows that you will almost inevitably take the line of least resistance. If he offers you anything too new or different he’s scared you won’t take the bait and he won’t get paid.
F*ck you, choice.
I don’t want to waste my time with you, get stressed with you and fill your pockets without any benefit to myself. I don’t have to feel the inevitable creep of your paralyzing, overwhelming fingers every time I need to make a decision. I don’t need you to tell me what the hell I might like or not like based on you shoe horning me into a damn box and slapping a label on me. I don’t need you making me feel inadequate, playing to my fears that there may always be something better. I don’t have to always feel slightly disappointed with my decisions because there were 800 other options and the chances that one of those would have been better.
We are all only capable of making so many decisions per day. After we reach our limit we become simply “choiced out”. Why would we waste our resources being forced into making trivial choices all the time when we need to save our brain power for the important decisions each day? Steve Jobs basically wore the same clothes every day to eliminate the stress of making decisions about the small things in life so that he could concentrate on the bigger picture.
Here are some suggestions of ways to relieve the burden of decision making.
1.Do you really need to make the decision? If you think you need something or you need to replace something, think again. Have you really explored and used the old version to it’s fullest extent? What difference will getting a new one really make? Will it really improve your life and make you happier in the long term?
Shopping for new things and indulging in choosing is like riding a sugar high, it’s addictive and short-lived and is followed by a slump. The most exciting part of a new purchase is the anticipation. Most of the time, a week later, and after having paid for it, the new item is all but forgotten.
2.When making a decision always keep the end objective in mind and try not to be seduced by things that you don’t really need. Be ruthlessly focussed at all times. Ask yourself what you’re trying to achieve by making the decision and always try to focus in on the benefits that will help you achieve your objective.
3.If you are really struggling with too many choices then go back to your core values and see if you can narrow down the options by aligning the decision with what you truly believe in. You might be extremely environmentally conscious for example, which might help in your decision, or perhaps love a particular style or era.
4.Decide if it’s a small or a big decision and grant it attention accordingly. It can become so easy to spend far too long and far too many resources on relatively trivial decisions purely because there are so many options available. Similarly, don’t be rushed into making big decisions. It’s easy to become emotionally involved and to make choices in the heat of the moment. If possible step back a while, take the heat out of the situation and choose objectively.
5. Give yourself a time boundary for choosing. Before you even begin, think objectively about how much time you are reasonably willing to invest in making the decision and stick to it.
6. Accept that you are not going to get 100% perfect. Release yourself from choice’s terrible claws and accept that 70 – 80% of perfect will be fine. After all, that’s probably 70 – 80% better than you have now. We are gradually becoming conditioned to strive for perfection, it’s incredibly stressful, debilitating and bad for our self-esteem. Perfection isn’t necessary or realistic in most circumstances and it can be liberating to accept this.
7. Start by eliminating the bad options. The one’s that obviously won’t work for you leaving you with at least a reduced list of possibilities. It can be really tempting to look at every single choice, just in the fear that you might miss something. It’s such a waste of time doing this.
8. Grab a piece of paper and a pen, divide into two columns and list pros and cons for each possible option. It’s a simple but powerful exercise and often getting things out of your head and onto paper can help clarify your thinking and be far less stressful.
9. Get someone else’s opinion. Often you can become so caught up in choice paralysis that you can’t see clearly. Just verbalizing your options and chatting them through with a trusted friend will help.
10. Think into the future and imagine your life after making each of the choice options. To a certain extent, you might feel that they will have little long term impact which will help put things in perspective a bit but try to think about what your life will be like depending on each of the choices you make.
And finally, my own particular bugbear.
Don’t follow “suggestions”. They are a sanitized reality and will only lead you down an unfulfilling pathway of sameness. We need to explore, try new things and experience things we don’t already know so that we can form opinions and grow. Be your own person, make your own decisions and don’t blindly follow an algorithm that pretends to care for you but just wants your money. We are all explorers, sameness is comforting but dull and stagnant. Try to tap into how you are actually feeling and decide what you feel you would benefit from watching or listening to.
Remember you should never be a slave to choice. In fact, choice should be subservient to you, take control, trust your own judgement, let go of the fantasy of perfection and enjoy the freedom!
Andrew Hind is a Dad to three teenage girls, photographer and musician as well as a keen cyclist. He is also the blogger at http://ift.tt/2riWwxz a blog about cycling, life and thriving. You can also connect at http://ift.tt/2v1LEXV
Photo credit: Alison Donovan Rouse
You’ve read 10 Liberating Tactics to Unshackle Yourself From the Slavery of Choice, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’ve enjoyed this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.
A year before leaving Enfield—the Georgian-style school building would later be converted into a train station and then ultimately be demolished—John Keats discovered Books. Books were the spoils left by the Incas, by Captain Cook’s voyages, Robinson Crusoe. He went to battle in Lemprière’s dictionary of classical myth, among the reproductions of ancient sculptures and marbles, the annals of Greek fable, in the arms of goddesses.
Sig Nordal 