The surest defense against Evil is extreme individualism, originality of thinking, whimsicality, even—if you will—eccentricity.
Author: signordal
How to Succeed by Quitting
You’re reading How to Succeed by Quitting, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’re enjoying this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.
“I just feel so trapped! We need the money.” I was terrified. I had spent ten years being a lawyer, and many years before that striving to be exactly where I was. Well, maybe not striving to be crying in my therapist’s office which is where I was at that moment, but striving to be an attorney. My therapist nodded empathetically and said, “but do you? Really? Does your daughter need money or a mom who isn’t having weekly anxiety attacks?”
The act of lawyering was a wonderful experience, when I got to do it. But as a relatively junior attorney, I was just someone else’s briefcase, carrying all the knowledge but doing very little of the substantive work. Of course, the pressure and stress were none the less for my lack of authority.
It took returning to work after the birth of my first child to jolt me into action. Suddenly anxiety attacks and being a briefcase weren’t compelling enough reasons to leave my precious child in the care of another person 10 hours a day. But how could I let go of being a lawyer? I’d worked so hard to get there. It seemed like such a waste to walk away before I “made it.”
With the help of my supportive and tenacious therapist, and my husband, I finally quit. It was scary but I learned five crucial lessons that have delivered me from quitting a job I hated to a successful life.
1. Know That Experience is Never Wasted
Just as energy can never be destroyed, experience is never wasted. Instead it moves to support your next endeavour.
If I hadn’t worked all those years as an attorney on writing and research, my blog would be far less interesting. If I hadn’t learned the art of persuasion, my daughter would be eating cheetos for dinner. I may not be a practicing lawyer anymore but I am certainly using all of the tools I gained as an attorney.
2. You Are Not What You Do
You are not a lawyer, real estate agent, florist, cardiologist, mom, or wife. Don’t accept the easy label. And do not endure misery eight hours out of the day just to maintain that label.
You are a person living the most unique experience on the planet because it is yours alone. Make of it what you will.
3. Quitting is Not Failure
I was so concerned that quitting the law meant that I had failed at being a lawyer.
Then I realized that adjusting one’s actions due to external circumstances is not failure. It is pivoting and adapting to a changing landscape. Continuing on as if nothing had happened would be failure. Pretending my dream of lawyering aligned with reality despite all evidence to the contrary would be failure.
Quitting what doesn’t serve you anymore is growth, self-knowledge and wisdom. Own it for the positive action it is.
4. Your Family Needs YOU
Your children don’t need a label. They need you: engaged, happy, passionate, and present. Yes, you need to make enough income to live. No you don’t have to stay home with your kids to give them what they need (unless that’s what you want!). But it is amazing how much you can reduce your needed income when you start prioritizing happiness over money or fancy titles.
For instance, my husband and I moved out of our uber-expensive city suburb to a quiet town. He went back to school and I am exploring a profession that doesn’t cause panic attacks. Rent in our new town is half the price of rent where we used to live. Childcare, gym memberships, food and utilities are all far less expensive here as well.
Of course, you can bank small savings by canceling your cable programming. But sometimes you have to think bigger to live a life you love.
5. Embrace Change
You are not trapped. Sometimes life pivots on you in a way that makes you feel cornered. You feel you have to keep doing what you’re doing because to do otherwise would be a waste, a failure, or too risky financially. So you keep doing it despite the consequences.
But life has a way of pushing you back into that corner until you either go mad or change. I’m here to suggest you choose change, sooner rather than later.
Ask yourself, what can I change to free myself? Why is this not working for me anymore?
If you’re feeling trapped, remember that quitting is not failure. It is instead proof that you have successfully read the signs and are following your path regardless of your previously held assumptions of what the path “should” be.
This is a guest post by Ashley Rupp who provides practical tips for personal growth on her blog Reining in Mom. She inspires moms to make themselves a priority and thrive with well-researched, compelling articles on habit formation, goal setting, clean living and simple parenting.
You’ve read How to Succeed by Quitting, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’ve enjoyed this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.
A Guide to Developing the Self-Discipline Habit
By Leo Babauta
One of the most important life skills to develop, for those just starting out in life (and everyone else!), is the skill of self-discipline.
It’s like a superpower: when I developed some self-discipline, I started exercising and eating healthier and meditating and writing more, I quit smoking and ran marathons, I started a blog and wrote books, I read more and work earlier, I decluttered and transformed my finances. I’m far from perfect, but I’ve learned a lot.
But if you don’t develop self-discipline, it causes problems: health problems, distraction, procrastination, financial problems, clutter, things piling up and overwhelming you, and much more.
So it’s such an important skill to develop, but most people don’t know where to start. This guide is aimed at helping you get started.
I’m writing it for my kids, and for anyone else who would like to develop a superpower.
Finding Motivation
The first question is, how do you even get motivated to start? Most of us don’t want to think about our lack of discipline, let alone take a bunch of actions.
For me, the motivation came from realizing that what I was doing wasn’t working. Ignoring the problems only made things worse. Trying to be disciplined but doing it half-assedly only resulted in me feeling bad about myself. Being wholly undisciplined was causing myself a bunch of pain.
Once you realize that you’re causing yourself pain … you might develop a whole-hearted intention to stop hurting yourself. You might say, “OK, that’s enough with making my life worse. Let’s try to make it less worse.”
With that in mind, you can tell yourself that you are going to:
- Start taking small actions to make things better
- Do the things that hurt you less
- Push yourself into discomfort a little bit, so you can get better at this over time
- Get good at self-discipline with some practice
Keep these things in mind as you practice, as you get the urge to not practice, and as you make mistakes and then want to give up.
There are other good motivations as well:
- Wanting to help others — if you get better at exercise or healthy eating, for example, you can help your aging parents who need to get better at these things. If you get better at not procrastinating on your life’s work, you can help more people with that meaningful work. More on this below, in the “Focus on Others” section.
- Appreciating life — we have a short time here on Earth, and the life we have is a gift. When we procrastinate and give in to endless distraction, and don’t make the most of our time, we are not fully appreciating the gift we have. Instead, we can appreciate it by being present, being grateful, and being purposeful about how we spend our time.
With these motivations — or whatever motivations move you the most — we can start to practice.
Small Actions
One of the most important things you can do to get better at self-discipline is to take small actions. It can seem overwhelming to tackle huge, intimidating projects … so don’t. Instead, tackle easy actions, things so small you can’t say no.
Have some taxes to do? Just do 5 minutes. Want to run? Just run for 10 minutes. Have a report to work on? Just do the first few paragraphs. Want to declutter? Just find 5 things to declutter.
You’ll get better at self-discipline if you focus on small tasks, and break bigger projects into small tasks. Read more.
Discomfort Training
One of the reasons we don’t have self-discipline is because we run from the hard, uncomfortable things. We would rather do the easy, comfortable, familiar things.
So instead of facing our hard, uncomfortable projects or finances, we run to distractions, videos, games. This running from discomfort is ruining our lives.
What you can tell yourself is that you’re done running. You are going to push into discomfort, a little at a time, and get good at being uncomfortable. This is another of your superpowers. When others run, you’re OK (even if it’s not always fun).
One small task at a time, push yourself into discomfort. See how it feels. See that it’s not the end of the world. See that you are awesome enough to handle discomfort, and that the results are well worth it.
Mindfulness with Urges
You’ll have the urge to quit doing something hard, or to put it off for now. Those urges don’t serve you well.
Instead, develop mindfulness around those urges, and see that you don’t have to follow them.
A good way to do that is to set a time for yourself where you can do nothing but X. For example, for the next 10 minutes, you can do nothing but write your book chapter (or exercise, meditate, etc.). When you have the urge to procrastinate or run to distractions, you’ll easily see it, because you’re either writing the book, or you’re not. When you have the urge, tell yourself you can’t follow it, you have to either write your book chapter or sit there and do nothing.
Raymond Chandler used that as his simple writing system: “Write or nothing. I find it works. Two very simple rules, a. you don’t have to write. b. you can’t do anything else.”
The reason it works is that you are setting up a time where you do nothing else but that one specified task, and you can see your urges to run away. Use this to learn to be mindful of your urges, and see that you don’t have to follow them.
Interval Training
If you combine the above items into a system of bursts, or intervals, you can train yourself using interval training:
- Set your intention to practice self-discipline and not hurt yourself anymore.
- Set a task to focus on (writing, drawing, strength training, meditating, etc).
- Set a timer for 10 minutes. Five minutes is also fine if 10 is too long. Don’t go longer until you get good at 10 minutes, then increase to 12 and eventually 15. I don’t find I need to go beyond 15-20 minutes even when I’m kicking butt.
- Do nothing but sit there and watch your urges, or push into your discomfort by doing the task.
- When the timer goes off, give yourself a 5-minute break.
- Repeat.
You can train for several intervals, or potentially for an hour or two. Then take a longer break, and do another set of intervals after that.
This kind of interval training is fantastic, because it’s not that hard, you really train yourself in discomfort and watching urges, and you can get a lot done this way.
A Focus on Others
When you find yourself struggling, dig into deeper motivation: doing your work/exercise/meditation etc. not for yourself, but for others.
For example:
- I’m writing this article to help my kids, and anyone else who might benefit.
- I work out to be healthy, not only for myself but as an example for my kids and others who might benefit.
- I meditate not only for my own peace and sanity, but so that I can help others find their own peace and sanity.
- You might draw or write or play music to inspire others.
In each example, you might benefit … but you’re also doing it to benefit others. And this benefit to others is much more motivating than doing something just for yourself.
Try it … try doing a difficult task for someone else. Tell them you’re going to do it for them beforehand, then keep them in mind as you do it. See if you feel more motivated.
Victories in Success & Failure
A huge mistake that a lot of people make is that they mess up, and get discouraged by this. They feel bad about messing up. This causes them to give up and not want to think about developing self-discipline.
Here’s the thing: failure is actually a victory.
Failure means you tried. So it’s a victory from the start.
But it also means you learned something — you now know that what you tried didn’t quite work. Next time, you can try something a bit different. Add more accountability, try it at a different time, unplug your wireless router, get a workout partner, anything. Because of your failure, you have new information. You’ve learned, and that helps you get better.
Failure is a victory. Success is also a victory. No matter what your result, you can see it as an opportunity to learn, to grow, to get better.
Drop any ideas of being perfect at this, and just keep trying.
The next time you fail at whatever you’re trying, instead of letting it get you discouraged, see it as a victory. Then keep going, no matter what, because giving up is only going to hurt you some more.
Getting Support
You’re not in this alone. You have family, friends, online strangers who can help you. Form a support team by reaching out to the people around you, and asking for their help.
Lots of people skip this because they are embarrassed by their lack of discipline. They feel that the way they behave is shameful. That’s not true. Actually, we all act like this, but we’re just afraid to show that side to each other. But the truth is, if you show your “dark” side to people, they actually love you more, trust you more, relate to you more. So don’t be afraid to connect with others in a vulnerable way.
Find the courage to ask for help. Then let yourself be supported as you work on pushing yourself into discomfort and hurting yourself less.
If you need help from me, try my 44 Training Program – Turning Uncertainty & Discomfort into Mindful Openness.
You can do this.
A Better Way to Choose Presidents
The most obvious rationale for reforming the Electoral College is to make it conform to the principle of “one citizen, one vote.” The Electoral College under current rules violates this principle; a vote by a Californian doesn’t count the same as one by an Ohioan. A number of readers have pointed out, however, that there is a more subtle reason for reforming the Electoral College, one connected to majority rule.
More Dangerous Than Trump
On May 20, Jeff Sessions completed his first hundred days as attorney general. His record thus far shows a determined effort to dismantle the Justice Department’s protections of civil rights and civil liberties. Reversing course from the Obama Justice Department on virtually every front, he is seeking to return us not just to the pre-Obama era but to the pre-civil-rights era.
3 Good Reasons Why Planning Just Isn’t For You
Planning. Simply the sound of this word is enough to give me a rage fit and a subsequent migraine.
Whether you want to start a business, do well at college or just become good at any kind of activity, one of the most frequent pieces of advice you will get is to plan everything. Even when it comes to relationships, planning is still considered to be essential.
At first, I became really angry and frustrated when I read all those articles because I am terrible at planning– really. The only thing I have managed to plan so far is my shopping list.
I have a bright memory from childhood. It’s when I decided it was time to get all fancy and organized and created a schedule of the entire following day. I was so serious that I even used an A3 sheet of paper for my schedule and I’m not kidding you.
And now, you can try to guess how much I lasted on my schedule.
I managed to do only one thing from the list and that’s to wake up. The rest of my day went haywire, as usual.
After years of struggling with my hectic and disorganized self, I started to question the premise and had anti-planning thoughts.
Can planning really do miracles to your life? I highly doubt that. I believe that, like everything on Earth, it has its downsides. Here are some of them.
Plans make you frustrated
I’m a perfectionist- yeah, that’s weird for someone who hates plans- and it backfires so much when it comes to crossing out items from my to-do or even shopping lists. If I can’t manage to find something or if I postpone a tiny errand to the next day, I will feel dissatisfied with myself. No matter how many tasks I do that same day, that one uncrossed thing will bug me.
What to do instead?
If you’re like me and “1 pound of sour cream” in your shopping list can ruin your day if uncrossed, try creating lists of things you actually DO as you go on with your day. This will help you feel a sense of accomplishment and boost your confidence. At the end of the day, you’ll be looking at a list of things you actually managed to do and not those you didn’t manage.
Plans don’t make THAT big of a difference
A lot of people expect to become time-management gurus the moment they start creating plans. But, guess what?
That doesn’t happen in a snap. It has to be learned much like any other action and habit out there. More than that, though planning helps you become more organized, the main point is that you need to do things. Planning alone won’t get you anywhere, except the fact that you’ll become incredibly good at creating lists.
What to do instead?
Try the immediate action strategy. Planning is preparation, and preparation is usually good. But, let’s be honest. Most of the time, we start making plans to procrastinate and to feel like we are actually doing something good about our lives.
So, instead of indulging into writing another list, choose a tiny action. Let’s say, clean a small section of your working table or finally move all the clothes from the chair to your drawers.
Plans can increase your anxiety
Life goes by its own rules with little regard for our plans. People forget to return a call or even show up, cars break and bad weather strikes unexpectedly. Life is haywire and that’s probably the reason we like plans so much. They help us make a little sense of the mess that’s constantly going on.
When something unexpected and unavoidable intervenes with your perfectly designed plan, it can make you feel like you are out of control and this adds more stress. You have a lot of things to deal with and now you have another issue to solve. In essence, it means less time for more things to accomplish.
What to do instead?
Choose a couple of pivotal actions and make them vital for you. See, there’s a lot going on with our lives, but we don’t forget the basic things anyway. We eat, sleep and drink.
Choose a couple of simple actions and make them an absolute must of your day. Soon, you will be used to them that you won’t need a plan to remind you anymore. You won’t beat yourself up for not sticking strictly to your schedule.
I’m not saying you should totally forget about lists and to-dos completely. They can be useful when you are packing for a trip or having a really hectic time. However, I don’t believe you need a to-do list for every day of your life. To me, they are more of a play-pretend game than of real usefulness.
What do you think about planning and to-do lists? Are they overrated or do they really make a big difference?
Share your insights below and maybe you can help me and other people who are all about anti-planning change our minds.
See Also: Todo List Apps for People Who Don’t Like Todo Lists
The post 3 Good Reasons Why Planning Just Isn’t For You appeared first on Dumb Little Man.
Are you excited for World Turtle Day? From tiny, cute baby…
Are you excited for World Turtle Day? From tiny, cute baby turtles to massive 1,500 pound leatherbacks, these fascinating animals can be found in almost every ecosystem around the world. Carrying their shells, they’re at home wherever they roam. Human intervention has threatened some turtle species, so please make sure you don’t disturb or distract them, especially nesting sea turtles. Photo of green sea turtles at Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge by Daniel W. Clark, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
A Colorful Contemporary House in Los Angeles, California
This wonderful house, featuring geometric shapes and angular lines throughout the space, was designed by architectural firm Amit Apel in Los Angeles, California, USA. It is not only that which distinguishes this house from all the others of its neighborhood, but also its peculiar color, a subdued gray accompanied by a darker one, along with a smoky orange that gives it a very modern and current touch to the geometric..
The post A Colorful Contemporary House in Los Angeles, California appeared first on HomeDSGN.
How To Make A Successful Mobile App For Your Business
Despite the fact that mobile apps are very useful and indispensable to businesses, over 70 percent of apps fail. In fact, some fail from the beginning.
If you are wondering how to make a successful mobile app, here are the best tips to guide you.
Find a need
The biggest cause of app failure is when the app is not as useful as the developer thinks. So, before you develop any app, you need to look for a need gap and then develop an app that will bridge that gap. Apart from figuring out the demand, you should also confirm if there are no mobile apps that are already fulfilling that specific need.
Improve on a category
You can also select a category and see all the apps that are performing well in that section. Improve on them.
For instance, you can check out all the keyboard apps that are developed for fast typing. After your search, you can now figure out how you can make an app that is more useful than the ones already in the market.
Do a proper feasibility study
Whether you are fulfilling a new need or creating a better app for an old category, you need to back it up with a proper feasibility study. You need to find out how much people need your app.
If you determine that people do not really need your app, it is better to stop and come up with another app idea. This is better than to waste time, money and effort in creating an app that won’t really be successful.
It is only when the figures on the ground indicate that the app will sell that you can go ahead.
Avoid counter-productive delays
Once you determine that people will accept your proposed app, it is better to start immediately. If, for some reasons, you can’t develop the app within three months after the feasibility study, then discard the feasibility report and conduct another one when you are ready.
Every feasibility report becomes invalid after three months. You need to bear in mind that technology advances at an astonishing speed. One of the biggest reasons for this is that a very close substitute may have been developed and that will reduce the acceptability of your app.
Plan your marketing strategy
A lot of app developers only focus on developing and launching their apps. They don’t realize that marketing the app is as important as developing it. With this, you should not develop any app until you know exactly what marketing strategies you are going to use.
Marketing strategies also involve optimization. Since there are millions of mobile apps available right now, proper optimization will help you stand out from the crowd. There are too many apps available and more apps are still being launched every day. Without an effective optimization effort, your new mobile app will be lost in the crowd.
Ease of use
It is one thing to get users to download your app; it is another to make them use it continuously. One of the qualities that can make users continue using your app is ease of use.
Your app should be very simple to understand and use. No one will waste too much time learning how to use an app when there are several other alternatives. You should ensure that your app is very intuitive and simple enough for a 10-year-old kid to understand.
A good way is to limit the number of features included in your app. Another method is to make use of universally accepted icons for different functions. Take, for example, the most common icon for search function which is a magnifying glass. Using another icon for that will make your app more difficult to understand.
Although every app should be unique, there should still be a limit to the uniqueness.
Make it free
Free apps are downloaded more than any other mobile app. So, it is highly advisable to make yours free. You can back it up with other monetization strategies, like utilizing ads.
Seek collaboration if necessary
Nobody knows it all. You can’t possibly be astonishing in every aspect of your app development. It is better to synergize with someone else and share the proceeds.
People that are great with coding are not usually half that good with designing. If you are one of those people, why not seek the service of a very good designer? It can be disastrous to ruin hours of coding efforts with a terrible design. Thereafter, do not forget to give credit to whoever it is due when it is due.
Great monetization strategy
Some apps are great but they have poor monetization strategies. They only get to make a fraction of their financial potentials.
Take a game app, for instance. A game has to be very challenging, engaging and immersive to make players buy resources with their hard-earned money. If not, they will only make do with the free resources given by the game. You should adopt an excellent monetization strategy for your app.
Avoid too many ads
Some developers prefer to make money from ads. If you are thinking of doing the same thing, consider how many ads you’ll allow.
When there are too many ads appearing on an app, it gets frustrating and annoying. It won’t be long before users will begin to delete the app and that will mark the start of its downfall.
Consumption of little memory space
An ideal app should consume very little storage and memory space. Users do not like apps that consume a lot of memory. If they happen to download such apps, they will delete them not too long after. In your own interest, you should ensure that your app consumes as little space as possible.
It has to work offline
Nobody really likes to waste or spend too much on data just to use a mobile app. People can only use their data to download an app but they can’t use their MB for that. So, they prefer offline mobile apps. As much as possible, your app should work offline.
Your app should conserve battery
Ensure that your app conserves battery power. Once a user finds out that it is your app that drains most of the battery power, your user will delete it almost immediately and look for an alternative app.
See Also: 7 Smart Reasons Why Small Businesses Should Develop Their Own Mobile Apps This 2017
The post How To Make A Successful Mobile App For Your Business appeared first on Dumb Little Man.
Contemporary Meets Industrial in this Private Home in Kiev, Ukraine
This home, designed by the Ukrainian Tseh Architectural Group in 2017, encompasses a perfect blend of industrial and contemporary styles. The home is located in Kiev, Ukraine, and its high ceilings and carefully placed skylights serve to give it a generous supply of natural light, which serves to enliven the space and give it an airy quality of tranquility. The exposed brick walls, painted white, along with the black iron..
The post Contemporary Meets Industrial in this Private Home in Kiev, Ukraine appeared first on HomeDSGN.
Sig Nordal 