Try remembering the last movie you saw; how much of it can you recall?
Could you sit back, close your eyes, and recall in perfect detail every scene, every dialog?
Of course not.
So why do you assume you can do the same for the movie of your life?
Our real-life is nothing but a huge collection of random memories.
And fortunately or unfortunately, this collection of memories is easily prone to innumerable modifications thanks to both internal and external influences.
Anyone selling you the recipe of the success formulae needs to be taken as seriously as any of those stock market forecasters seen on television because any formula for success that might work once stops working as soon as it becomes widely known.
Despite this, there is no dearth of people selling you the precise concoction of habits and behaviors that could guarantee you a definite success in any of the chosen fields.
Dopamine Fasting is an evidence-based technique to manage addictive behaviors. This is primarily achieved by restricting these addictive behaviors to specific periods of time while practicing fasting from impulsively engaging in them. The objective is to regain behavioral flexibility.
Dopamine fast is a method, based on cognitive behavioral therapy. It’s an attempt to make ourselves impervious to host of unhealthy stimuli — the texts, the notifications, the ringtones, the pings, — often considered an integral part of modern tech driven society.
Even if you are lucky to have all the requisite skills, it doesn’t mean the world has an obligation to deliver you a medal on a platter. You need to earn it by executing your skills inside the dojo (the arena where the bouts take place).
Deliberate practice refers to a special type of practice that is purposeful and systematic. While regular practice might include mindless repetitions, deliberate practice requires focused attention and is conducted with the specific goal of improving performance.
The greatest challenge of deliberate practice is to remain focused. In the beginning, showing up is the most important thing. But after a while, we begin to carelessly overlook small errors and miss daily opportunities for improvement.
Most people are terrible planners - and I don’t claim to be an exception by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, I used to be so bad at planning that I can be listed among a handful of rare people to have missed their flights on more than a couple of occasions.
After deliberately getting deep into the topic of planning disasters, I came to know that psychologists have a name for it - the planning fallacy.
The planning fallacy refers to…
Motivation isn’t a spark but a result of small victories that fuel success incrementally. So instead of looking for shortcuts, cultivate a process that enables you to achieve regular success and live a fulfilling daily life on your way to the top.
Am I Only… Am I only born to make a man complete? Am I only beautiful to make you feel upbeat? Am I only working hard to cover all your ****? Am I only strong to support you when you’re staring defeat? Am I only producing eggs to make you genetically complete? Am I only nice …
Fifty years before Steve Jobs urged college graduates to search for their true passion ceaselessly, the great Trappist monk Thomas Merton observed, “The world is full of unsuccessful businessmen who still secretly believe they were meant to be artists or writers or actors in the movies.”
According to Oxfam’s report, India’s top 10% of the population holds 74.3% of the total national wealth while the bottom 90% owns 25.7% of national wealth. The report puts the gravity of this inequality problem at the center stage.
In fact, if we look at the increase in wealth of India’s top 11 billionaires during the pandemic, we can see that the amount could sustain the NREGS scheme or the health ministry for the coming ten years.
In liberal education, exploration is not just a whimsical luxury; it is a central benefit. Learning stuff is of secondary importance than learning about oneself—the emphasis is on developing all capacities of a human being—intellectual, physical, emotional, aesthetic, and moral—in an integrated manner.
Overthinking drains your mental resources, which can interfere with your ability to solve problems. So you end up caught in the tangle of rumination, and no insight is gained. Overthinking makes you feel worse, says Sonja Lyubomirsky, a psychology professor at the University of California — Riverside, and author of “The How of Happiness.”
You may say that even the simple act of consuming food looks like a lot of work. Initially, it may look like one, but once you start reaping the benefits of this choice, you might be amazed by its profound simplicity and long-term gains.
Trying to get positives out of 2020 might look as hard as making milk from almonds. We may still be struggling today, but there are opportunities we haven’t fully seized yet, and the potential we haven’t fully realized yet.
It’s true while learning alone can’t help us succeed; the life lessons from the year 2020 can help us prepare better for an uncertain 2021.
My personal 20 life lessons learned in the year 2020 are enlisted as follows.
The problem with most of your stressful experiences is that they all eventually cease. Those experiences in themselves do not cause any suffering; it’s your aversion to them that makes you suffer.
If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it, and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.
And it has nothing to do with your coding ability A team of code-breakers has solved a cipher attributed to the Zodiac Killer. David Oranchak, a US-based software developer, Sam Blake, a mathematician based in Australia, and Jarl Van Eycke, a programmer based in Belgium, managed to crack Z340, a 340-character cipher that’s one of four such …
Once in a while, I indulge in writing a short story to pull something interesting out of my imaginary hat t’s the early hours of yet another night. And it’s pouring as if the blanket of dark clouds has been retrofitted with multiple oversized showers. Amit’s Honda city caught in the usual city traffic is …
During the early days of my career, I had this habit of solving people’s problems, especially those close to my influence area. This was a habit I developed while growing up, thinking this was the best way to support friends, colleagues, and subordinates who asked for my help.
I always felt that helping people get better at doing their job was a great thing to do until I was proved wrong.
I realized that this habit of mine was making me extremely tired in the long run because I was always racking my brain to come up with solutions and ideas. Besides, I wasn’t creating the best possible space for other people to think effectively about their problems.
One day, one of my colleagues came to discuss an urgent issue.
Even Nature spends plenty of resources on what might be called ‘perception-hacking.’
Berries and fruits that want to be eaten develop a distinctive coloration and an attractive taste when they ripen.
By contrast, caterpillars that don’t want to be eaten have evolved to taste disgusting to their predators.
If you care to dig deep inside yourself, you might find that most of your perennial struggle with self-discipline is nothing but a manifestation of your own inadequacy — perceived by both you as well as people known to you.
We often shy away from taking responsibility for our behavior. We tend to label ourselves as someone who had been a failure when it comes to sticking with good old self-discipline.
For instance, if you have always struggled to keep your weight within an acceptable range — a yardstick of your own creation, you see it as an excuse to default again.