The Art of Improvement, Author at The Art of Improvement

Do You Struggle With Focus? Practice These 3 Easy Habits

Scroll on Dwayne ‘the Rock’ Johnson’s Instagram and you’ll inevitably find a video of him lifting weights shouting “FOCUS” at someone offscreen. However, it might not be as simple as that for some. If you’re one of those people, fear not. You aren’t alone by any stretch of the imagination.

Obtaining focus can often feel like an uphill battle, especially in the present world. Think about the ding your phone makes when you get a text. it’s designed to acquire your immediate attention; to stop everything you’re doing and focus on this notification. With your focus dragged down to the small screen in your hand, the major social networking apps lick their proverbial lips, relishing the opportunity to consume their product and collect your data.

7 Micro-Habits That Will Completely Change Your Life in a Year

For many people, every New Year comes with the New Year’s Resolution. These usually take the shape of fairly life-changing goals, such as finding a new job or finally getting ripped for the summer.

However, such a mindset is destined for failure.

Sure, it’s a good idea to have overarching goals. They provide a sense of focus and a general direction to head towards. But it isn’t sustainable. Think about it, if you woke up every day telling yourself “I need to find a job”, the enormity of it all will weigh heavy. You can’t just find the perfect role with the click of your fingers. If anything, a constant reminder of your overarching goal will weigh you down.

How To Perform Above Average

Have you heard the saying, “Anything worth doing is worth doing well”? This quote has been echoed through the ages to encourage good works and competence. Doing your best is always a good way to tackle anything you want to accomplish.

The average person is usually trying to do the best they can. We feel better about ourselves, reach more goals, and become more successful when we do a good job.

But what if you wanted to become more than average? What if you wanted to excel to greater heights in your relationships and workplace? What would it take to be a cut above? What would you need to do to perform above average?

Where To Start When You’ve Procrastinated On Your Goals For Too Long

Most people have goals. Personal goals, professional goals, fitness goals, and many other types of goals. Some are short term and are achieved quickly and easily. Others may take much longer. Some goals may literally take a lifetime.

We generally have goals over the course of a day or week. And can check them off our lists with little difficulty. But what about the bigger goals? Or goals we don’t really want to do in the first place? What if we have goals set for us by our boss or other obligations that we need to accomplish but just can’t seem to get to? And now it’s overdue. Time is running out and we haven’t even started. What then?

What if you’ve procrastinated too long on your goals and now you don’t even know where to start?

10 Questions You Need To Ask Yourself Constantly

Life is a process. We are always working on making improvements at a pace that works differently for each person. By constantly reassessing our thoughts and actions, we can know where to make changes to meet our goals.

Here are 10 questions to ask yourself frequently. Write them down and look at them on a regular basis to help know yourself better and navigate your course with clarity and awareness.

What We Should Have Learned in School But Never Did

When you think back on your school days, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? The school building itself? A memorable teacher? The friends you made? Chances are the actual lessons of reading, writing, math and science are not at the top of your list. Although they do serve as the basic skills of an education.

We may also learn certain social aspects that help us to be good citizens. At a very young age we learn to take turns, stand in a line, and function in a group. As we get older, we may learn more about cooperation and teamwork. And on a less positive side, we may experience relationship difficulties and peer pressure.

How to Combat Imposter Syndrome

So you finally reached a point in your life where you’re starting to feel accomplished, successful, and competent! You’ve worked hard, honed your skills and taken advantage of your opportunities, when suddenly it hits. A persistent and internalized fear comes over you that this is all wrong and somebody is going to find out you’re a fraud and call you out on it! You feel like you don’t belong in this role and the only reason you got here is by luck or circumstance. What just happened?!

You’ve been struck by Imposter Syndrome. This phenomenon was first described by psychologists Suzanne Imes and Pauline Rose Clance, who coined the phrase. It generally affects high achieving individuals who find it hard to accept their success and achievements. They feel that they are undeserving of the recognition and status they are receiving. Despite evidence of their competence, they seem to think they have somehow fooled people into believing in them and then feel guilty about it.

How to Hack Your Brain to Destroy Procrastination

Procrastination.

The dictionary defines this as something we delay or postpone that should be done. Sound familiar?

We’ve all been down that road at one time or another, where there’s something that needs to be done but we just keep putting it off. We’re perfectly aware of it. We’re expecting to do it at some point. There it is on our “to-do” list, staring us in the face. But for whatever reason, we push it to the back burner and tell ourselves we’ll get to it eventually.

5 Habits You Should Avoid to Become Highly Productive

Highly productive people have certain habits that other people don’t. What are they doing that sets them apart? How are they getting so much done, and achieving their goals? We all want to be successful, but what are we doing wrong?

Here are a few habits you really need to avoid, if you want to get on track with being highly productive.

How to Improve Your Decision-making

To explain how to make better decisions, let us first look at Dark, a German time-travel science-fiction drama on Netflix.

The show dips in an out of multiple timelines, showing characters interact with different versions of themselves and their loved ones. The characters are constantly making decisions with massive consequences in the present day and in all other timelines.

There’s one quote that stands out the most. One of the main characters, Jonas, is speaking to Marta:

“Why do we say that?”

“To have time. […]”

“How can you have time when it clearly has you?”

Time does control us – we’re simply along for the ride. But that doesn’t mean our journey is without aim. When making better decisions, utilising your time is perhaps your most effective tool.