mdolla: 07/17/17

Monday, July 17, 2017

Stop Being Mediocre Because of Picking the Wrong Battlefield

I believe many of us, either consciously or subconsciously believe that life is a quest of self improvement, a quest that only ends in death.

This is a popular notion, after all, consider the abundance and popularity of self-help books and sites.The focus on improvement is so strong that, according to this graph

The use of the word “improve” has been increasing steadily since the start of the 20th century

Yet all this focus on a general improvement mean that we often don’t know what to focus on. We want to improve, but we don’t know the answer to the simple question: Improve what?

Developing the wrong things can complicate or slow down our quests for self improvement.

Wayne Rooney, the world famous English soccer player has played a number of different positions on the pitch. Because of this he is a skilled all round player. He’s good but he might not be as nearly great as he could be if he decided to play to his strengths and stick to them.

This is obvious when compared to Cristiano Ronaldo, who has always played to his strengths by focusing on being in forward. Cristiano Ronaldo is considered to be arguably the finest player currently in professional soccer.

If Ronaldo were to have decided to move about the pitch, playing a great number of different positions, then as he never focused on developing his skills, he would have likely ended up an inferior player than he is today.

Ultimately it is easier to see your own weaknesses than strengths. This can be worse when you see someone great at something you are not. It is easy to feel compelled to try to match them in their skill. However this disregards the probability that you are better at something than them. Returning to the soccer analogy, if a whole team were to try to match each other, instead of developing their own skills. It would be a mediocre team.

It is impossible for one person to be great at everything, so developing in a focused way may be the true source of self-improvement or growth that you actually need.

This notion has been proved in the history of the smartphone too.

Consider the history of the smartphone^[1] Prior to the unveiling of the Iphone in 2007, phone companies thought the future of mobile phones resided durablity, the chipsets, and appearance (for example the popular Motorola RAZR ^[2] which only really was revolutionary in appearance, not tech).

Apple however, realized people deep down wanted more efficiency, and something more than just a mobile . Luckily being innovative and improving efficiency have always been Apple’s strengths. In focusing on their strengths, they have revolutionized the mobile phone industry. Whereas everyone was trying to improve upon everything, Apple just made a device that encapsulated everything they already did well.

Because they played to their strengths they exceeded, outclassed and outsold their competitions, and eventually the competition ended up more or less copying Apple with their own smartphones.

Improving everything = Becoming average at everything

The best way to truly improve yourself doesn’t go with finding and getting things you don’t have, but building on the things that you have already.

This process can be painful and difficult. Whenever we find things we aren’t good at, it is perfectly natural to want to become good at it. However time is finite. Every second you spend going from bad to decent at one thing, is a second you could have spent on going from good to sensational at something else.

But what exactly should you do?

1. Clearly identify your strength

It is a good idea to sit down and work out what exactly your strengths are. Only you know this, you might be a fantastic painter, a skilled engineer, a great sportsperson, a passionate performer, or a great writer….it doesn’t matter. Once you have identified your strengths, hold them, celebrate them! But at the same time accept that it is literally impossible to be great at everything, so why try?

2. Define it clearly by doing detailed research

Once you have identified your strengths and skills, spend time to truly learn about them, learn what can be improved and how to go about improving. You can only build on something if you know and understand everything about it. For example if you are already good at communication, look into the importance of tone and body language, and as a result, you will go from a great communicator to an exceptional one.

3. Breakdown your strength into small parts and start practicing, deliberately

Once you understand yourself and your skills you can now readily identify what parts you need to build on and what parts you don’t. After this you should practice your skill with the specific aim at improving on on that particular aspect. This is called deliberate practice. If you want to learn more about deliberate practice, I recommend you read our article about it on Lifehack. Once you improve on particular parts, your overall skill level improves dramatically as you are training yourself in a very systematic, strategic way.

Picking flaws at what you are already good is hard but this is how you can turn from good to great

This process is extremely difficult and can be initially very disappointing. When you develop skills in something you’re not already good at, you can see obvious progress in not much time at all. However it is much less easy to spot improvements in something you’re already good at. It is easier to spot things you’re not very good at than to spot things lacking in things you are already good at. To see flaws in something others think you are skilled at.

Therefore it seems to truly excel you need to focus. Develop one thing you’re already good at and keep working on it until you’re the best.

Reference

[1]	^	Guardian: The history of smartphones: timeline
[2]	^	Business Insider:Watch The Incredible 70-Year Evolution Of The Cell Phone

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Academy member George A. Romero pioneered the modern zombie...

Academy member George A. Romero pioneered the modern zombie genre and inspired generations of horror filmmakers and film fans. Here, Romero films Judith O’Dea during production of his 1968 picture Night of the Living Dead.

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Every week this summer, our Academy Gold interns get to hear...

Every week this summer, our Academy Gold interns get to hear from leaders in the industry. Here is some advice for future filmmakers from writer/director/actress Amber Tamblyn.

Artist : GRAFFMATT aka ( Matthieu Lainé )URBAN BLOCK ( Top...

Artist : GRAFFMATT aka ( Matthieu Lainé )

URBAN BLOCK ( Top )

Biography
Born in 1986, Matthieu Lainé aka GRAFFMATT is an artist from Chambéry, Savoie. Graduated from the school of graphic arts La Martinière-Diderot in 2006 (Lyon), he specializes in graphics and video, but his main activity quickly becomes painting. He navigates between personal works and artistic commissions without losing his personality.
A lover of street art and Hip-Hop culture, GRAFFMATT develops wide techniques and explores several media (collage, kraft, cardboard, canvas, etc.) always with his main source of inspiration: the urban scene. It is also inspired by street fashion, a trend known as street style or street fashion. Even if he grants more preference to the model than to the style of dress, he retains the authenticity of the moment, taken from life, without artifices other than those of natural appearance and external light.

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Artist : GRAFFMATT aka ( Matthieu Lainé )URBAN BLOCK ( Top... crss

Artist : GRAFFMATT aka ( Matthieu Lainé )

URBAN BLOCK ( Top )

Thank you for your Submission! Submit here

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How Jotting Down Ideas in 30 Seconds Boosts Creativity

An adult has an average of 50,000 thoughts every day. Now try to recall 100 of those thoughts from earlier today. Pretty hard, right?

It’s normal to forget most of them as our brains have to filter out unnecessary information so that we don’t go insane. ^[1] The problem is that we forget a lot of great ideas along the way.

Great ideas often come when a person is unprepared

Most of the time great ideas come from diffused mode: Thoughts come to you in this state when you’re not intently focused. Daydreaming or zoning out in the shower are perfect examples of this state of mind. Creative ideas come to us during this state of mind because this is when our minds are the most relaxed. This is when our brains connect different neural pathways to come up with brand new ideas (the same as how creativity allows us to connect the dots, our brains do this naturally in this state). As our brains are so relaxed, there’s no intention to mark down ideas that come along.

Never trust your brain: it’s bad at memory

Very often the ideas that come to us during diffuse mode can be a bit abstract. Out of the box thinking, if you will. This is your best content. The high level, creative, new ideas that are going to take the world by storm.

Remember the genius, ground-breaking idea you came up with in the shower? The one that was going to revolutionize the world as we know it? Of course you can’t remember. Your monumental idea slipped through the cracks of your memory, never to be heard from again because you didn’t take the time to write it down.

In today’s race against time, we just can’t spare an extra moment to jot down the ideas that constantly pass through our heads. Some people may think that it’s even a waste of time. We think that if the thought is that important, we will remember it later and put it into action. But we don’t. And we’re just left with that empty vagueness- “I know I was on to something, what was it again?”

Jot down, jot down, jot down

Don’t be lazy, Jot down the great idea no matter how confident you’re to remember that.

Keep recording tools within reach, but not directly in sight. If you set out a notebook and pen directly in front of you, you are no longer in diffuse mode and thoughts are not free flowing. But you want the notebook to be close enough, so that when the thoughts come to you, you can quickly jot them down.

Smartphone apps such as Evernote are a great option for this. Some others are recording apps, a waterproof notebook for the shower, your laptop, or simply a notebook and pen (this is my personal favorite, more authentic.)

Resist the urge to organize

It’s so easy to fall into the trap of immediately organizing your thoughts as they come to you. Don’t do it. Organizing is a separate task for later, when you switch into focus mode (the opposite of diffuse mode).

Stick to the process of free thinking and writing down ideas and leaving them alone until later. If you try to organize them as they come, you’ll lose many ideas because you are too focused on a single idea. You’ll also lose motivation because you’re loading yourself up with work and complicating the process.

Review, review, review

Now that you have the ideas written down, you need to reinforce the ideas to turn them into something bigger. You should review your ideas around 3 times a week.

While reviewing you can filter out some of the less useful ideas, organize them, and start developing the potentially successful ones.

Remember, most people have plenty of great ideas, just very few of them bother to jot them down. And those who do are the ones who succeed.

Reference

[1]

io9: Our brains deliberately make us forget things, to prevent insanity

The post How Jotting Down Ideas in 30 Seconds Boosts Creativity appeared first on Lifehack.

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The Magic of Marking down Your Mood Every Day

Let me ask you a question: what emotions did you experience today? Were you happy? Sad? Frustrated or anxious? Recalling your emotions from the last 24 hours is pretty easy but what about yesterday? Or last Friday? It starts to be a bit hard. What if I’m asking you about last month?

Emotions affect us every minute and every second. When you feel anxious at work, you’re more likely to make mistakes and it’s harder to come up with great ideas. When you’re frustrated for unknown reasons, you lose motivation and would just like to lie on your bed doing nothing. When you’re angry with someone, you unconsciously treat the others angrily too. Losing track of emotions means losing track of all these. You’ll never know the reasons and patterns and hence never be to solve the issues and improve the situation.

Emotions should be approached like money

People treat money with so much importance yet they can be so dismissive of their emotions and how they affect them. When we have less money than we’d like, we’ll automatically tune our spending and keep track of where it’s going and how much we have – adapting our spending habits accordingly. In other words, if one doesn’t keep track then there’s no way to tune and improve it.

This is how emotions should be approached. By putting the same importance on how we feel, acknowledging why we feel a certain way and what’s caused it, we’re able to tune better into identifying and handling emotions in a more positive way.

3 things to mark down every day

Throughout any given day, write down the following:

Your general emotion of the day
The events of the day
The link between your emotion and what happened

You’ll notice your emotions fluctuate on different days. This is completely normal. After all, we’re human and it can be difficult to control what happens to us and how we respond to them so it’s important to give yourself a bit of understanding.

Because of this, it’s impossible to always maintain a happy mood so don’t put pressure on yourself to consistently feel positive emotions.

Once you start tracking your moods and the events of the day you can start to see the connections between them. Reviewing your emotions means being able to see what exactly makes you happy, anxious or sad. You might not know rainy days make you sullen before. You might not be aware initiating a greeting to your neighbor can make you feel energetic for the rest of the day until you mark all these down.

You can use excel or mood apps such as Mr Mood which can help you see correlations more clearly. Try it out for a few days but keep it general – try to not rate your mood by the hour as it’s more likely to fluctuate in smaller time frames. Instead rate your overall mood of the day along with the events that occurred.

Over time, although fluctuations still exist, you’ll see your mood is boosted overall as you cultivate more positive experiences and curb negative ones once you identify which they are. Previously bad weather made you feel sad, now you still feel a bit sad but you know how to make fun out of it by staying at home doing things you’ve always wanted to do but postponed. Previously you would only be happy when your manager noticed your efforts and recognized you. Now you realize how important recognition is to you after marking down your mood every day. And you’ve decided to recognize yourself whenever you think you’re worth it, even if no one noticed your efforts.