Success isn’t that difficult; it merely involves taking twenty steps in a singular direction. Most people take one step in twenty directions.

If you want a different life, you must be a different person.

Getting enough self-discipline to get stuff done is tough. What if there was a way you could become ultra-productive and reach your dreams without having to just push through in misery? Here is how:<ul><li>Intentionally design your environment for success instead of worrying about willpower.</li><li>Optimize separate spaces for work and play for maximum productivity and fulfilment.</li><li>Quickly and firmly get rid of anything and everything that makes reaching your goals harder and requires willpower to resist. </li></ul>

The Premise

If we can intentionally design our environment, we’ll make improving ourselves easy.The two types of evolution:<ul><li>Natural Evolution, which is where organisms evolve based on their situations. </li><li>Domesticated Evolution, that involves controlling the environment of an organism to make it evolve as you want it to. </li></ul>Most often we just let ourselves evolve naturally, succumbing to the negative effects of a world that tries to make us fat, depressed, and in debt. But when we intentionally design our environment, everything changes.

Intentionally Design Your Environment

“Work hard, play hard” is a good mantra to live by but it needs some adjusting for this day and age. We need to add the idea that we must do each in a different place if we want to be the most efficient.When you intentionally designate one space for work and one for play, you optimize your body’s ability to work hard and recover. Set aside a room as your office where you only work, and another for relaxation, where you only spend time relaxing.

Designate Specific, Separate Places For Work and Play

When designing your environment for success, take this no-nonsense attitude into your efforts. Start by clearing up your phone from distractions. Get rid of the time-waster apps that are your go-to’s when you’re tired or bored from working.If you’re trying to eat healthier and lose weight, go to your closet and throw away all sugary foods immediately.

Eliminate Stuff That Requires Willpower To Resist

books

Books

health

Health

communication

Communication

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

The Psychology of Willpower

We rely on willpower to create change in our lives...but what if we're thinking about it all wrong? In Willpower Doesn't Work, Benjamin Hardy explains that willpower is nothing more than a dangerous fad-one that is bound to lead to failure. Instead of "white-knuckling" your way to change, you need to instead alter your surroundings to support your goals. This book shows you how. The world around us is fast-paced, confusing, and full of distractions. It's easy to lose focus on what you want to achieve, and your willpower won't last long if your environment is in conflict with your goals--eventually, the environment will win out. Willpower Doesn't Work is the needed guided for today's over-stimulating and addicting environment. Willpower Doesn't Work will specifically teach you: How to make the biggest decisions of your life--and why those decisions must be made in specific settings How to create a daily "sacred" environment to live your life with intention, and not get sucked into the cultural addictions How to invest big in yourself to upgrade your environment and mindset How to put "forcing functions" in your life--so your default behaviors are precisely what you want them to be How to quickly put yourself in proximity to the most successful people in the world--and how to adapt their knowledge and skills to yourself even quicker How to create an environment where endless creativity and boundless productivity is the norm Benjamin Hardy will show you that nurture is far more powerful than your nature, and teach you how to create and control your environment so your environment will not create and control you.

Understand yourself and those around you.

psychology

Psychology

motivationandinspiration

Motivation & Inspiration

We rely on willpower to create change in our lives...but what if we're thinking about it all wrong? In Willpower Doesn't Work, Benjamin Hardy explains that willpower is nothing more than a dangerous fad-one that is bound to lead to failure. Instead of "white-knuckling" your way to change, you need to instead alter your surroundings to support your goals. This book shows you how. The world around us is fast-paced, confusing, and full of distractions. It's easy to lose focus on what you want to achieve, and your willpower won't last long if your environment is in conflict with your goals--eventually, the environment will win out. Willpower Doesn't Work is the needed guided for today's over-stimulating and addicting environment. Willpower Doesn't Work will specifically teach you: <ul><li>How to make the biggest decisions of your life--and why those decisions must be made in specific settings</li><li>How to create a daily "sacred" environment to live your life with intention, and not get sucked into the cultural addictions</li><li>How to invest big in yourself to upgrade your environment and mindset</li><li>How to put "forcing functions" in your life--so your default behaviors are precisely what you want them to be</li><li>How to quickly put yourself in proximity to the most successful people in the world--and how to adapt their knowledge and skills to yourself even quicker</li><li>How to create an environment where endless creativity and boundless productivity is the norm</li></ul> Benjamin Hardy will show you that nurture is far more powerful than your nature, and teach you how to create and control your environment so your environment will not create and control you.

Benjamin Hardy

Willpower Doesn't Work

Who hasn’t seen a friend divert their attention, mid-conversation, to reflexively check their phone? Most of us simply accept these interruptions as a consequence of our times.Unfortunately, distraction is contagious. When smokers get together, the first one to take out their pack sends a cue, and when others notice, they do the same. Likewise, digital devices can prompt others’ behaviors. When one person takes out their phone at dinner, it acts as an external trigger. Soon, others are lost in their screens at the expense of the conversation.

Lost In The Screen

The remedy for distraction in social situations involves the development of new norms that make it taboo to check one’s phone when in the company of others.The only way to make sure certain unhealthy behaviors are no longer acceptable is to call them out and address them with social antibodies that block their spread. This tactic worked with smoking, and it can work with digital distractions.

Developing Social Antibodies

You can ask a direct question that gives the person two simple options: (1) excuse himself to attend to the crisis happening on his device, or (2) kindly put away his phone.The question goes like this: “I see you’re on your phone. Is everything okay?”Remember to be sincere—after all, there might really be an emergency. But more often than not, he’ll mutter a little excuse, tuck his phone back into his pocket, and start enjoying the night again.

How To Handle The Person Distracted In The Phone

If we’re not intentional about making time and space for distraction-free discussions, we risk losing the opportunity to truly know others and allow them to truly know us.In the same way that society reduced social smoking with social antibodies, we can reduce distraction while with friends.By getting agreement from our friends and families to manage distraction and taking steps to remove external triggers that don’t serve us, we can quarantine the social contagion of distraction while spending time with people we love.

Distraction Free Days

Digital distractions prevent us from being fully present with the people we love. Here’s how to (politely) get a friend off their phone.

habits

Habits

technologyandthefuture

Technology & The Future

How to Get a Friend to Put Away Their Phone Without Being a Jerk

Pay attention. Focus on your surroundings, physical and psychological. Notice something that bothers you, that concerns you, that will not let you be, which you could fix, that you would fix, and fix it. ﻿

"What does everyone in the modern world need to know? [The author's] answer to this most difficult of questions uniquely combines the hard-won truths of ancient tradition with the stunning revelations of cutting-edge scientific research. [The author discusses] discussing discipline, freedom, adventure and responsibility, distilling the world's wisdom into 12 practical and profound rules for life"--

#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER  #1 INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER What does everyone in the modern world need to know? Renowned psychologist Jordan B. Peterson's answer to this most difficult of questions uniquely combines the hard-won truths of ancient tradition with the stunning revelations of cutting-edge scientific research. Humorous, surprising and informative, Dr. Peterson tells us why skateboarding boys and girls must be left alone, what terrible fate awaits those who criticize too easily, and why you should always pet a cat when you meet one on the street. What does the nervous system of the lowly lobster have to tell us about standing up straight (with our shoulders back) and about success in life? Why did ancient Egyptians worship the capacity to pay careful attention as the highest of gods? What dreadful paths do people tread when they become resentful, arrogant and vengeful? Dr. Peterson journeys broadly, discussing discipline, freedom, adventure and responsibility, distilling the world's wisdom into 12 practical and profound rules for life. 12 Rules for Life shatters the modern commonplaces of science, faith and human nature, while transforming and ennobling the mind and spirit of its readers.

Jordan Bernt Peterson is a Canadian psychologist, author, and media commentator. He began to receive widespread attention in the late 2010s for his views on cultural and political issues, often described as conservative. Peterson has described himself as a classic British liberal and a traditionalist.

Jordan B. Peterson

12 Rules for Life

Many people think handshaking is a modern way of welcoming, wishing, or dealing. But handshake was coming from very late history.Archeologists found many old stuff like paintings, sculptures of people shaking hands

Coming from history

Hence we mentioned it was from history, it was invented in the times of Kings.Past then people used to carry swords, they are tied in the left side of a person, so that he can easily pull it out with his right hand when needed.

Reason

Since the sword is always with them, they thought it's better to shake his right hand with another person's right hand to show that they are not going to attack him, since my hand is with you.

The WIshing

education

Learning & Education

Why Do We Shake Hands With People?

Attentional bias can be defined as our tendency to focus on certain elements while ignoring others. It can be understood as failure to look for evidence against an initial possibility, or as failure to consider alternative possibilities.Our attention can be biased by external events as well as internal thoughts and emotions. For instance, being hungry may make you pay more attention to food, and holding certain beliefs will skew your thinking towards decisions that are aligned with these beliefs.

Attentional bias

<ul><li>Pay attention to your attention. Whenever you feel your attention is being automatically pulled into a specific direction, ask yourself why this is the case.</li><li>Go beyond the most obvious answer. If you find the answer to a question completely obvious, chances are some of your thinking is based on heuristics that may not be the only way to approach the problem at hand.</li><li>Cultivate open-mindedness. Being open-minded is not something you just decide to become. It can be cultivated by asking good questions, reading books outside of your usual interests, and connecting with people who think differently.</li></ul>

How to manage the attentional bias

We often follow a train of thought without noticing the selective factors in our attention. This is called the attentional bias.

productivity

Productivity

leadershipandmanagement

Leadership & Management

Attentional bias: the invisible puppeteer behind our decisions

First coined by Robert Cialdini in 1984, social proof is also known as informational social influence. In his book Influence: Science and Practice, he discusses social proof as one of the influential psychological principles that persuade us to behave in certain ways.In ambiguous situations, decision-making is made difficult by uncertainty regarding the potential outcomes, which may result in decision anxiety. Social proof (safety in numbers, or reliance on the authority of others) therefore becomes a powerful influencer of decision making if we feel that others are better qualified to decide.

Social proof

Positive public reviews and ratings persuade us that a company or their product is trustworthy. Endorsements from specialists such as doctors or dentists also encourage consumers to choose a recommended product rather than one with no professional testimonial, even if the products are otherwise comparable.It’s interesting to note that we don’t tend to seek safety in any kind of numbers. When we see ourselves as similar to those around us, we are more likely to view their behavior as correct, and therefore adopt it as our own.

The power of positive endorsement

<ul><li>Herd mentality can prevent us from practicing critical thinking and exploring new, innovative ideas.</li><li>Even if an opinion is held by a large group of people, this does not necessarily make it correct. </li><li>Following the crowd can lead people to make poor decisions that they would not have made without the encouragement obtained from social proof. </li><li>In addition, social proof can cause you not only to act, but also to fail to act. </li></ul>

The dangers of relying on social proof

<ul><li>Be mindful of influencers. Successful influencers are incredibly persuasive. When you see a product or argument being advertised, be aware of the underlying mechanism of influence at play.</li><li>Interrogate your own beliefs. It can feel easier and quicker to adopt the beliefs of others, rather than interrogating your own opinion on a subject. </li><li>Know when a decision matters. Moral decisions, choices that will affect your income or career, or expensive purchasing dilemmas should be made with more than just reliance on social proof. </li></ul>

How to wisely use social proof

The informal fallacy of making choices that fit with those of our peers is known as social proof. While it can help us to make everyday decisions, it is vital to learn how to use it wisely rather than blindly following the crowd into what could turn out to be a bad choice.

Social proof: is there always safety in numbers?

When you’re struggling to speak to yourself kindly, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/thelatestkate/?hl=en">The Latest Kate </a>has a cute animal to do it for you. The adorable characters in her original artwork cover themes like body positivity, self-love and self-care, and battling depression and anxiety. Kate also includes quick tips for dealing with mental health issues, like counting in 10-second increments to deal with anxiety.

1. The Latest Kate 

Bianca’s struggles with depression, anxiety and alcoholism led her on a path to help others with their mental health journeys. She focuses on the <a href="https://www.instagram.com/youarecomplete/?hl=en">spiritual side of mental health </a>in order to “teach people how to connect with and harness their intuition to become the fullest most badass version of themselves.”

2. Bianca L. Rodriguez

As a registered Health Psychologist in the United Kingdom, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/healthpsychologyclinic/?hl=en">Joanna Konstantopoulou </a>specializes in the intersection of physical and mental health. She posts mental health tips, nutrition advice, and encouraging quotes. Her biggest piece of mental health advice? Prioritize self-care.

3. Joanna Konstantopoulou

Years ago, Heidi experienced an 18-month episode of suicidal depression, debilitating anxiety, and explosive PTSD, which inspired her to begin studying trauma and neuropsychology. <a href="https://www.instagram.com/heidiwilliams89/?hl=en">Her Instagram feed </a>is filled with photos of gorgeous yoga poses across the Salt Lake City landscape, and her captions share advice on dealing with mental health struggles. She says that working with her nervous system is what sparked her radical journey with healing, and she wants to teach her followers how they can utilize the same approach.

4. Heidi Williams

Sara-Jayne grew up in a Catholic household where talking about mental illness was taboo. “I knew the way that I thought and felt things was different, but it wasn't until my early twenties that I realized just how impactful it was on my whole life,” she tells Verywell. When she decided to seek professional help as an adult, she was diagnosed with <a href="https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-clinical-depression-1067309">major depressive disorder </a>, <a href="https://www.verywellmind.com/dsm-5-criteria-for-generalized-anxiety-disorder-1393147">generalized anxiety disorder </a>, and later, <a href="https://www.verywellmind.com/requirements-for-ptsd-diagnosis-2797637">post-traumatic stress disorder </a>.

5. Sara-Jayne Poletti

Sometimes, laughter is the best form of self-care. <a href="https://www.instagram.com/itsthecwolf/?hl=en">Christina </a>started her Instagram back in 2013 as a comedy account. When she shared the humor she found in her mental health struggles, her followers told her how much it helped them, and she knew she had to continue to share those experiences.

6. Christina Wolfgram

As Amy struggled with depression and anxiety, she found that following accounts where people shared their mental health stories made her feel less alone. A little over a year ago, she finally decided to start <a href="https://www.instagram.com/accounts/login/">her own account </a>to share her mental health struggles. Her feed is filled with flowers, books, coffee, and encouraging quotes, paired with honest accounts of her journey with mental health issues.

7. Anxiety Sugar

Akanksha originally started her account as a platform to <a href="https://www.instagram.com/thatsappywriter/?hl=en">share her poetry </a>, but she began to steer her content toward sharing her experience with anxiety, which she was diagnosed with at age 16.“Having people around you, who understand and love you, can be groundbreaking," she tells Verywell. "We cannot undermine the power of sheer love. That's what this account is, for me and the followers, a space to love, talk without apprehensions, and discuss our daily struggles.”

8. That Sappy Writer

Beth learned from personal experience how much therapy can help with anxiety, which inspired her to pursue a career in psychology. Now a Licensed Professional Counselor, she specializes in treating disorders like anxiety, OCD, and body-focused repetitive behaviors.

9. Beth Brawley

With a quick glance at Jera's <a href="https://www.instagram.com/accounts/login/">Instagram feed</a>, she might seem like a typical influencer with a glamorous life. But a closer look reveals the reality behind her beautiful photos: she opens up about learning to be okay with weight gain, mild freakouts about hairy toes, and struggling with social anxiety. For Jera, one of the beautiful things about Instagram is that it allows us to connect with others and feel less alone, which is especially important for invisible struggles like mental illness.

10. Jera Foster-Fell

These Instagrammers are sharing their mental health journeys and removing the stigma around mental illness, one post at a time.

mentalhealth

Mental Health

10 Instagram Accounts That Destigmatize Mental Health

Productivity dysmorphia could explain why you feel down about your productivity, even when it’s clear to everyone else you’re doing a great job. It sits in “the intersection of burnout, imposter syndrome, and anxiety.”

Productivity dysmorphia

The key to battling productivity dysmorphia is recognizing intellectually that you’re meeting your goals and doing good work. It can be helpful to see those facts represented in a tangible way. <ul><li>Write down your to-do list regularly, but don’t be overwhelmed if it’s long. You’ll get it all done in a timely manner. You are more than capable.</li><li>Mark off each goal as you accomplish it. It’s important that you see your successes and wins. At the end of the day, even if only half of the items on the list are checked off, you’ll see how much work you really did. </li></ul>

Write down your to-do list

We get a lot of feedback during the workday that can go unappreciated because of the pace at which we work. Stop letting positive reinforcement pass you by. That’s what the productivity dysmorphia wants.Next time you get an email or Slack message thanking you for all your hard work, don’t just reply, “No problem.” Sit for a second and think about the message, whether it’s from your boss or a third-party connection.

Take positive messages to heart

Try to reconsider what you think of as “productivity.” <ul><li>It’s productive to get all your work done, yes, and productive to work out or devote a certain amount of time every night to your side job or hobby. </li><li>It’s also productive to rest. Relaxing and refreshing your mind and body will enable you to accomplish more in the near future without risking the dreaded burnout. Celebrate everything you do as a step toward productivity. Write down your rest periods, too. They count.</li></ul>

Reframe your idea of “productivity”

You've accomplished too much to feel that you haven't done enough.

career

Career

How to Overcome ‘Productivity Dysmorphia’

We are not rich by what we possess but by what we can do without.

Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always at the same time as an end.﻿

All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing higher than reason.

Genius is the ability to independently arrive at and understand concepts that would normally have to be taught by another person.

Seek not the favour of the multitude; it is seldom got by honest and lawful means. But seek the testimony of few; and number not voices, but weigh them.

Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one's understanding without guidance from another.

Whereas the beautiful is limited, the sublime is limitless, so that the mind in the presence of the sublime, attempting to imagine what it cannot, has pain in the failure but pleasure in contemplating the immensity of the attempt.

A man abandoned by himself on a desert island would adorn neither his hut nor his person; nor would he seek for flowers, still less would he plant them, in order to adorn himself therewith. It is only in society that it occurs to him to be not merely a man, but a refined man after his kind (the beginning of civilization). For such do we judge him to be who is both inclined and apt to communicate his pleasure to others, and who is not contented with an object if he cannot feel satisfaction in it in common with others.

Space and time are the framework within which the mind is constrained to construct its experience of reality.

Man must be disciplined, for he is by nature raw and wild.

As nature has uncovered from under this hard shell the seed for which she most tenderly cares - the propensity and vocation to free thinking - this gradually works back upon the character of the people, who thereby gradually become capable of managing freedom; finally, it affects the principles of government, which finds it to its advantage to treat men, who are now more than machines, in accordance with their dignity.﻿

Skepticism is thus a resting-place for human reason, where it can reflect upon its dogmatic wanderings and make survey of the region in which it finds itself, so that for the future it may be able to choose its path with more certainty.﻿

One who makes himself a worm cannot complain afterwards if people step on him.

The people naturally adhere most to doctrines which demand the least self-exertion and the least use of their own reason, and which can best accommodate their duties to their inclinations.

Rules for happiness: something to do, someone to love, something to hope for.

Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher and an influential mind in the philosophy of Enlightenment. He promoted the idea that one should think feely and autonomously, without influence from authority or doctrine.

One of Kant’s core beliefs was that reason is the ultimate source of morality and that what we perceive as beauty and desirable is subjective and dependent on the mind of the individual.

Kant also proposed that because of our lack of information and tangible evidence, it is impossible to know whether or not God, or an afterlife, really exists. He put forward the sentiment that people

philosophy

Philosophy

Immanuel Kant: Greatest Quotes

This “critical inner voice” exists in all of us, reminding us constantly that we aren’t good enough and don’t deserve what we want. As long as we are listening to this dangerous critic that twists our reality, we cannot really trust our own perceptions of what others think of us.Once we lose confidence or our sense of self, we’ll no longer act like ourselves.

What is our “critical inner voice”?

Chances are, it is this destructive “voice” we are hearing every time we tell ourselves, “nobody likes me.”<ul><li> It’s also this voice that instructs us to avoid situations where we’d get to know people.</li><li> It shuts us up in social situations, makes us nervous, so we don’t act like ourselves.</li><li> It confuses us with its ceaseless stream of self-shaming observations and self-limiting advice, leaving us anxious and stifled. .</li></ul>

Effects Of This Inner Voice

<ol><li>If a parent thought of us as lazy, helpless or as a troublemaker, we tend to incorporate these attitudes toward ourselves on an unconscious level throughout our lives. </li><li>Add to this the many other social experiences we had where we felt put down, shamed or rejected (a teacher who humiliated us in front of our class, a bully at school who put us down on a daily basis), and we can start to see how our inner critic took shape.</li></ol>

Where does the “voice” that “nobody likes me” come from?

The critical inner voice strongly influences feelings of isolation, loneliness and social anxiety<a href="https://www.psychalive.org/isolation-and-loneliness/"> </a>. This creates a self-fulfilling prophecy. If we start to see the world as threatening or not accepting of us, we are much more likely to act in ways that push away or alienate others. In order to challenge our loneliness, we have to challenge the negative filter through which we see ourselves and the world around us. We have to take on our critical inner voice.

Dealing with Isolation and Loneliness

There are five important steps to overcoming this inner critic.Step One: Get to know what your inner critic is telling you Step Two: Think about where these critical attitudes come from Step Three: Talk back to your critical inner voice Step Four: Think about how your voices affect your actions Step Five: Change your behavior

Overcoming the Critical Inner Voice

There is perhaps no more painful thought in the world than that of “nobody likes me.” It’s an easy self-attack to indulge and dwell on when we feel isolated, depressed, anxious or insecure.

“Nobody Likes Me:” Understanding Loneliness and Self-shame - PsychAlive

Find 100+ Psychology Facts about Human Behaviour, Mind or Nature - Curated from Videos, Podcasts, Books & Articles - Genuine Insights from Other People