Category: General

The default approach to personal growth is to begin by working on your weaknesses, and searching for resources that will help you overcome them.

If you have issues with productivity, then the first thing you read up on is productivity.

In many ways this is a healthy attitude. Your problem areas are bottlenecks that restrict the amount of happiness and success you can experience in life.

But focusing solely on your weaknesses can be quite challenging, not to mention depressing.

When all you’re thinking about are the things you suck at, it’s easy to develop a negative self-image, where you dig a hole for yourself that’s very difficult to get out of.

Instead of giving your weaknesses all your attention, be fully aware of your strengths and the role they can play in your life.

They can be an enormous aid in helping you tackle your weaknesses.

I’ve put myself down on many occasions because I’m slow at getting work done. I always seem to get overwhelmed by the ideas I have that I can’t focus on a single task to work on.

I later realized that I’m great at explaining the big picture to others, identifying patterns and making connections. These are valuable skills that I can build on rather than ignore because I happen to be weak when it comes to dealing with details.

I can accept my weaknesses and work on them, but not to the exclusion of my strengths. To move my life forward, I need to celebrate my strengths and make the most out of them.

What are you good at? What do people come to you for? What do you find easy to do? What can you pick up on very quickly? What do you have most experience in?

How can you use your strengths to overcome your weaknesses?

When it comes to your New Year’s resolutions, don’t think only about overcoming your weaknesses, but resolve to make the most out of your strengths, and look for opportunities where they will be most useful and appreciated.

Have you ever went to bed thinking to yourself: “Where the hell did the day go?”

The hours flew by, but you didn’t manage to accomplish anything noteworthy?

That’s because you were running on autopilot and only snapped out of it at the end of the day.

But why does that happen?

And – more importantly – how can you avoid it from happening again?

Why You Shut Down

We live in a complex world. There’s a lot to learn and a lot to do.

And when we overlook our present limitations while setting high expectations, our mind enters Panic Mode.

“There’s so much to do and so little time!”

To protect your sanity and well-being, your mind searches for distractions to keep you occupied, without having to worry about the things that are causing you to panic.

Not the wisest of strategies, I know.

Your mind has the right intention, but applies the wrong solution.

That’s when conscious effort is needed to deal with panic.

How To Escape Panic Mode

The first thing to know about panic is that it’s a reflex. It’s a default response you have to life’s challenges.

You will most likely enter Panic Mode before you realize, and the last thing you want to do is panic about being in Panic Mode (a very common occurrence, I’m afraid).

Here are 7 steps you can take to escape Panic Mode and move towards a more sensible attitude to life:

1- Accept your situation: Panic contains an element of “this isn’t happening to me!” which means that you don’t accept things as they are. Begin by accepting your situation. Accept that you have a lot to do. Accept that things are the way they are, so you don’t have to resort to evasion or rejecting reality the way it is.

2- Be fully aware of the things you want to do: Rather than looking away from your workload, you want to be aware of it. When you panic, your mind looks away, and you end up not doing anything. You want to feel comfortable looking at your workload and being aware of what you want to get done.

3- Acknowledge your feelings: Don’t ignore your feelings of panic, fear, worry, anxiety, frustration, or any other feeling you’re experiencing. Acknowledge these feelings as your way of dealing with your present challenges. If you ignore your feelings they will simply operate in the background and set the stage for Panic Mode to take hold of your mind.

4- Admit your limits: Your workload seems daunting because you can’t handle it all at once. Admit what you are able to manage and what you can’t manage. Admit how much time you have, how fast you can get work done, how much effort you can afford to give and all the other restrictions you will operate within. If you don’t admit your limits, you’ll develop some unhealthy expectations.

Speaking of expectations…

5- Adjust your expectations: Don’t aim to do more than you can accomplish, and adjust your expectations according to your abilities. Say to yourself: “It’s OK, I can only do this much.” This way, you don’t pressure yourself into producing results you know – somewhere in your psyche – that you can’t produce.

6- Be realistic about what you can accomplish in a day: Don’t try to do everything under the sun in one day. That’s a switch to turn Panic Mode mode on. Instead, set reasonable daily targets you know you can achieve, and postpone everything else for the days ahead.

7- Focus on what you can do: Don’t worry about how things will turn out or what the stars may have in store for you. Focus on what you can do and leave everything else to take care of itself. Trying to control what’s outside your control is impossible, and the most sensible approach your mind can think of to deal with this impossibility is to go into Panic Mode.

Smile and take a deep breath. You just learned a way to deal with your Panic Mode. 🙂

As a teacher, I’m not interested in getting the right answer from my students, just an answer.

Why?

Because giving the right answer feels intimidating.

Students don’t want to look stupid, so they prefer to stay quiet.

But how they answer my questions reveal what their understanding of the subject is, and I use that as a basis to explain the subject. I build on what they understood correctly, and clarify what they haven’t.

If I ignore their understanding and continue my lessons without taking their misunderstandings into consideration, there will be a gap between what they know and what I’m teaching them. They will struggle to make sense of what I’m saying since it doesn’t fit into their own understanding.

In most cases, however, the students say they don’t know what the right answer is, then immediately give it!

That’s because they weren’t sure whether their understanding of the subject is correct or not.

We have the same situation when it comes to personal growth.

We look for answers to our questions and solutions to our problems, without realizing that – in many cases – we already know the answer we’re looking for and possess the solution we desperately seek.

Except, we don’t realize that we do.

Because we’re not experts, or not popular, or not successful.

We overlook our own insights and rely on other people’s advice.

But the reason why we resist following other people’s advice is that – deep down – we disagree with it. Or, at least, feel that our own opinions deserve some recognition, even when we don’t acknowledge them consciously.

I’m not saying that your answers will always be correct, but it’s a great place to start and build on.

Before you look for the next book or blog that’ll change your life, ask yourself: “What do I think of this? How will I solve this problem? What do I already know about this issue? What do I think will work in this situation?”

I’m sure you’ll be impressed by your own advice. 😉

I’m not quite sure where the human race went wrong, but we’ve developed some unhealthy masochistic tendencies.

Many religious teachings reinforce the idea that pain and torment are the hallmarks of the pious, and Immanuel Kant’s philosophy established selflessness as the foundation of morality.

If it’s enjoyable, then it’s bad.

If it’s for your own pleasure, then it’s evil.

This obsession with pain is rampant in our societies, where we tend to value hard work over great results.

The effort you put in seems to be more valuable than the results you get out.

The efficient and productive workers seem to “have it easy” and “don’t work as hard as their coworkers.”

Working at a job you hate sounds like the responsible thing to do. If you enjoy your work, then you’re just playing around and need to “grow up.”

If you don’t suffer, you don’t succeed.

Or so our culture says.

But pain is a bad thing. No human being should voluntarily seek out pain, especially when there are painless alternatives.

I would even say that you can usually get better results, with less pain.

If you’re willing to let go of this whole idea that pain is a virtue, you’ll realize that you can work smarter, instead of having to work harder.

Instead of doing everything manually, you can figure out ways to automate repetitive tasks.

Instead of trying to do everything yourself, you can get others to help you out.

Instead of approaching work with the mindset that “this sucks, but I have to do it,” you look for ways to make the work more enjoyable (if it can’t be avoided).

Instead of wasting your life in a job you hate, you pursue the work you enjoy and feel passionate about.

Pain is your body’s way of telling you something is wrong. Continuing with the pain means you’re ignoring your body’s signal and going against your own needs.

Sooner or later your body will give in and you may blow a mental fuse (or two).

There are some pursuits that involve hard work, but that doesn’t mean that you should make the work feel painful.

Try and make every endeavor as enjoyable as you can make it.

Add excitement and fun to the pursuit of every goal.

How can I make this more exciting? How can I make this more fun? How can I make this easier?

You’ll realize that you’ll be able to stick with goals for longer and get better results if you don’t feel obliged to experience pain.

No pain, more gain.

My wife (a.k.a. the wifey) once presented me with this hypothetical scenario:

Suppose you are a waiter at a restaurant.

There are two women, one fat and the other skinny, sitting at a table. You were asked to take a Pepsi and a Diet Pepsi to them.

Who would you offer the Diet Pepsi to?

Making assumptions about people’s dietary choices based on their body size can be offensive, but I was quick to answer: “I’d ask them: ‘Who ordered the Diet Pepsi?'”

The wifey said: “Suppose you can’t ask.”

“Easy! I’d say what the drinks are and put them in the middle for them to take the drink they ordered!”

“Well, let’s suppose you can’t do that either.”

“That’s easy! I’d commit suicide!”

Yes, I’m not the biggest fan of hypothetical scenarios, and by the end of this post I suspect you won’t be, either.

Hypothetical scenarios are useful to isolate a particular issue so it can be understood more fully, and they are enormously useful in education.

Rather than mention a particular political incident, where people can be distracted by the details, you present a hypothetical scenario so you can discuss the role of an ideal government, for example.

It is also very common to use hypothetical scenarios when exploring moral questions, or for preparing responses to situations you are likely to face in the future.

The problem is when you apply the same hypothetical thinking to address real-life problems.

Hypothetical scenarios involve context-dropping, where you don’t consider the specifics of a situation, but its general description.

In real-life, the specifics matter. You think within the context of your life.

You don’t ignore details or try to think of how someone might tackle the problems you’re facing, without taking all the relevant details of your life into consideration.

For example, suppose you are looking for a job in the IT field. How would you do it?

You can use job boards, go to a career office, approach companies, or ask the people you know.

If you say to yourself: “But what if I don’t find anything in the job boards?” before you even search them, you know that hypothetical thinking has damaged your brain.

Why? Because you’re trying to plan for something that doesn’t exist in your life, while overlooking the opportunity you have in front of you.

You think that’s bad? Most of us go a step further. We don’t ask the people we know for help!

Why? Because in the back of our minds we say to ourselves: “But what if I didn’t know these people? How would I be able to get a job by myself?”

We form a very generic, universal scenario in our head that’s meant to encompass the whole of humanity and then ask: “How would I function then?”

But you never live in a universal scenario.

Your life is made up of details that you don’t share with anyone else.

There are similarities with other people, of course. But you can’t overlook the unique elements that form your life while trying to make a decision.

My wifey’s hypothetical scenario would never exist in the real world, so why bother searching for an answer to such a scenario? Why can’t I ask the women who ordered what? Why can’t I put the drinks in the middle?

In many ways, we unnecessarily restrict our options because we’re thinking hypothetically.

Don’t think about the people that are in the worst possible situations (physical disability, abusive father, no family or friends, in huge debt, under a corrupt regime, etc), then live your life according to their situation. Accept the opportunities you have, as well as your own limits.

For every goal you wish to achieve, look at the resources available to you and only you. Then look at the resources available to those in your neighborhood, your country, your region.

Embrace the details that make up your life.

Don’t imagine life in other people’s shoes. Live in your own.