Self-Improvement Archives - Page 11 of 12

10 Things You Need to Give Up If You Want to Be Successful

Often, when we think about how to become successful we focus on all the things we need to do. We need to work out more, we need to eat better, we need to get this or that project done. We need to do better in school. We need to be more consistent. We need to be more productive.

But sometimes, we end up focusing so much on all the things we need to do, we forget about all the things we need to give up. Over time, we develop mindsets or habits that hold us back from achieving our goals, and if we never give them up, they keep holding us back, no matter how much we try.

That’s why it’s useful to consider what parts of your life you need to let go, the parts of your life that need to demand less of your focus, so you can have the space to work on your goals and aspirations.

Let’s go over some of the key things you probably need to give up in order to reach your full potential and see the kind of success you know you’re capable of.

How To Plan Your Week Effectively

In his celebrated book on organization, The Bullet Journal Method, Ryder Carroll describes his personal organization and productivity system: the bullet journal.

Throughout his life, Carroll struggled with keeping track of tasks, often forgetting important information, and feeling overwhelmed by tasks. However, through trial and error (and after trying countless other organization systems), he finally hit upon a way to, as he puts it,

“Track the past, order the present, and design the future.”

How to Get Out of a Rut

So, you’re in a rut.

The dishes have piled up. Your work lays unfinished in a pile on your desk. You haven’t been to the gym in days or even weeks. You spend your time watching tv, or TikTok, or playing video games all day. Somehow, you’ve managed to wake up on the wrong side of the bed every morning. You lack energy, motivation. You can’t even remember why you used to be so productive in the first place.

What’s worse, the thought of picking yourself up by the bootstraps and getting back on top of things fills you with dread. You don’t want to clean your room. Lying on the couch all day is a much more enjoyable pastime. Catching up on work sounds like a huge burden. And the further you slide into this rut, the harder it is to come back out of it.

How to Study for Exams: Evidence-Based tips

The Science Behind Why Your Study Methods Aren’t Working (and what to do instead!)

In the first semester of my freshman year of college, I had to take a math class to fulfill my major’s requirements. My advisor enrolled me in a 300 level statistics course, which ended up being much harder than I anticipated. It had been a few years since I had even taken a math class, and I hadn’t ever taken a stats class before.

That whole semester was a slog, and I got some of the worst grades on quizzes and homework I’d ever gotten. As the end of the semester loomed, I realized I would have to pull off a miracle in the final exam in order to pass and keep up my GPA.

Parkinson’s Law: How to Manage Your Time More Effectively

Have you ever been given an assignment for an essay that’s due in a month, but waited until the last few days to write it? Or maybe you’ve had to give a work presentation at the end of the week, but put everything together an hour before you had to give it? Or maybe you’ve set a big goal for yourself to get completed in five years, but don’t seem to be making any progress?

If you’ve ever experienced this kind of procrastination, you’ve experienced Parkinson’s Law.

Parkinson’s Law is a theory developed by Cyril Northcote Parkinson in an essay published in The Economist in 1955. Cyril wrote his essay after spending a lot of time in the British Civil Service where he noticed tasks took up as much time as they were allotted.

How to Keep Going (Even When You Don’t See Any Results)

Have you ever had a goal that no matter how hard you worked or how many hours you dedicated or how many affirmations you chanted, just didn’t seem to make any progress? Despite all your best effort, it felt like you were running on a treadmill — working hard but not going anywhere.

When I decided to take my career to the next level and become a freelancer, I encountered this problem. Even though I was putting in countless hours every week, I just wasn’t getting any clients. At the time, I didn’t even know the first thing about business or marketing or how to sell my services. The only thing I actually knew how to do was the service I was trying to get clients for.

How to Make Yourself Study When You Don’t Have Any Motivation

There’s probably nothing more frustrating than knowing an exam is on the horizon, knowing you need to study for it, and completely lacking any motivation to actually sit down and get started.

Studying is one of those things that’s easy to lose motivation for. It can seem overwhelming, impossible, and never-ending. “Studying” as an idea is so amorphous it easily causes panic, fear, and even total shut down.

But regaining motivation for studying isn’t impossible. And there are several ways to make sure your studying is stress-free, structured, manageable, and even fun. Let’s break some of them down:

How to Build Self-Discipline

The other day, I struggled with self-discipline.

I warred with myself, negotiated, revisited arguments, made imaginary pro and con lists, and eventually realized that no, I could not get out of my daily workout.

This happens pretty much every day, actually.

5 o’clock rolls around — my designated time for exercise — and I start to wonder: do I really need to do my workout today? What if I only did half my workout? What if I went for a walk around the block instead? What if I did some light stretching instead? What if I just stayed on the couch eating potato chips instead?

10 Ways to Build and Develop Resilience

In life, everyone encounters hardships.

Some will be big, and others will be small. Whether it’s the loss of a loved one, getting laid off, heartbreak, divorce, or even just putting orange juice in this morning’s cereal instead of milk, there will be tough times.

When these difficult times inevitably arrive, we can either choose to let them swallow us up, or we can choose to keep going and make the best of the cards life has dealt us. Yes, even when there’s orange juice in your cereal.

This is where a very important skill comes in: resilience.

Why You Can’t Focus – and How To Fix That

Do you struggle to maintain focus on important tasks? Does your mind wander as soon as you sit down to work? Do you turn to your phone, or Youtube (yes, WE SEE YOU), TikTok, or Twitter, to distract yourself from a project for your boss? What about watching too much TV or reading so much you never get your homework done? Does working on something for a whole hour sound like an impossible task? Utterly daunting? Totally unthinkable?

Well, you’re not alone. Focus is a difficult thing to master, and many people struggle with it. Even now as I write this, I find myself momentarily preoccupied with a spot of dirt on my laptop, flipping through the pages of a book nearby that I’ve never read, and crossing off the previous days on my wall calendar.