Polyprax - Scholar of Improvement
Helps & tips to make life better
Progress Researcher • Learner • Student
Welfare Educator • Teacher • Motivator
Remember that you can improve your life and the world for the better by turning your thoughts and dreams into action and reality.
- A person who uses their thinking and thoughts to transform their life and the world around them for the better. Their thoughts propel them to ultimately take action towards making their vision come true.
- A person who thinks that you can turn thoughts and ideas into reality.
- A person who understands that action, work, habits, and routines are also needed to make changes, complete tasks and projects, and achieve goals and dreams.
- A person who thinks that action and results begin with ideas, thinking, and believing.
Thinkist - Munro Stewart
Write down a list of your goals and dreams, because writing thoughts and ideas down is the first step to making them come to life.
A list of your short- and long-term goals can be a great motivator, as well as a trigger list to help generate new projects. I also like to have a list of areas of focus, the different roles that I play, each of which comes with a different set of tasks and goals.
12 Lists that help you get things done - Lifehack.org
Consider using simple text files to help you get things done and keep track of your tasks, todo lists, projects, and goals, instead of using a complicated tasks app.
While I love the apps mentioned above, I personally look for super simple. So I’ve settled on a setup taken from Gina and Adam’s articles on Lifehacker (read the tutorials: Geek to Live and Hack Attack). Text files: Basically, I organize my tasks in a series of text files. That’s because they’re super simple, easy to manipulate, and small. My four files:
- @today: my three MITs for today, along with calls, batch tasks, and an inbox for new things added to the list.
- @ideas: any ideas for projects, posts, or anything really.
- @errands: includes regular errands and my shopping list.
- @todo: my list of 3 projects I’m working on and any other todo items I’m not going to do today.
Amazing Mac apps for getting things done (plus a custom-rigged setup) - Zen Habits
Remember that you can positively influence other people's lives by telling them you believe in them, you think they are a good person, they possess good qualities, and you expect they will perform well because they have the ability to do so.
The Pygmalion effect is a psychological phenomenon in which high expectations lead to improved performance in a given area and low expectations lead to worse. It is named after the Greek myth of Pygmalion, the sculptor who fell so much in love with the perfectly beautiful statue he created that the statue came to life. According to the Pygmalion effect, the targets of the expectations internalize their positive labels, and those with positive labels succeed accordingly; a similar process works in the opposite direction in the case of low expectations. The idea behind the Pygmalion effect is that increasing the leader's expectation of the follower's performance will result in better follower performance. Within sociology, the effect is often cited with regard to education and social class.
Pygmalion effect - Wikipedia
Give honest and sincere appreciation. - Dale Carnegie
Lincoln once began a letter saying: "Everybody likes a compliment." William James said: "The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated." He didn't speak, mind you, of the "wish" or the "desire" or the "longing" to be appreciated. He said the "craving" to be appreciated...Let's try to figure out the other person's good points. Then forget flattery. Give honest, sincere appreciation. Be "hearty in your [compliments] and lavish in your praise." and people will cherish your words and treasure them and repeat them over a lifetime - repeat them years after you have forgotten them.
How To Win Friends And Influence People - Goodreads
"It's not the daily increase but daily decrease. Hack away at the unessential." - Bruce Lee
If you want to improve your life then it’s tempting to want to add more. One problem with this may be that you don’t really have the time or energy to do more though. And so your efforts to improve become short-lived. Adding more and more just creates more stress and anxiety. Removing clutter and activities, tasks and thoughts that are not so important frees up time and energy for you to do more of what you really want to do. And as the clutter in your outer world decreases the clutter in your inner world also has a tendency to decrease. This has the added benefit of making it easier to actually enjoy whatever you are doing even more while you are doing it.
Bruce Lee’s top 7 fundamentals for getting your life in shape - Positivity Blog
Turn your problems into challenges or goals that you can overcome or accomplish in order to be happier and improve your life.
Happy people will see problems as challenges, as opportunities to explore new ways of doing things, expressing their gratitude for them, understanding that underneath them all lay many opportunities that will allow them to expand and to grow.
15 Powerful things happy people do differently - Purpose Fairy
Remember that you can influence your mind positively and change your life for the better by using the principle of autosuggestion.
Through the dominating thoughts which one permits to remain in the conscious mind, whether these thoughts be negative or positive is immaterial, the principle of autosuggestion voluntarily reaches the subconscious mind and influences it with these thoughts. Recall what has been said about the subconscious mind resembling a fertile garden spot, in which weeds will grow in abundance, if the seeds of more desirable crops are not sown therein. Autosuggestion is the agency of control through which an individual may voluntarily feed his subconscious mind on thoughts of a creative nature, or, by neglect, permit thoughts of a destructive nature to find their way into this rich garden of the mind.
Think And Grow Rich - Goodreads
Remember that your beliefs and thoughts influence your mind and your life, so any expectations you have about your self, your character, your abilities, your goals, and your dreams can and often will come true if you believe they will.
A self-fulfilling prophecy is a prediction that comes true at least in part as a result of a person's belief or expectation that said prediction would come true. In the phenomena, people tend to act the way they have been expected to making the expectations come true. Self-fulfilling prophecies are an example of the more general phenomenon of positive feedback loops. A self-fulfilling prophecy can have either negative or positive outcomes. Merely applying a label to someone or something can affect the perception of the person/thing and create a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Self-fulfilling prophecy - Wikipedia
Live your life by being true to yourself and following your own dreams and desires.
I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me. This was the most common regret of all. When people realise that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not honoured even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made. It is very important to try and honour at least some of your dreams along the way. From the moment that you lose your health, it is too late. Health brings a freedom very few realise, until they no longer have it.
Top 5 regrets of the dying - Huffington Post
Create daily habits and practices to achieve goals and make your dreams come true.
The only way you can make something stick is to create a habit through daily practice. So if you want to exercise, set up 10 minutes every day, at the same time of day, when you’re going to do your yoga or pushups or jogging/walking. Put it on the calendar, and make it an unmissable appointment. Quitting a habit is tougher, but perhaps try a “smoking-free zone” when you don’t smoke. (Or a “procrastination-free zone”.) Just an hour a day, then two hours after a few days, then three after a few more, etc. Eventually you’ll learn coping tactics and awareness during your zone that will help you quit completely.
Feeling determined to change - Zen Habits
Remember that the solution or explanation with the fewest amount of steps or assumptions should often be preferred in order to simplify the solution down to its essential factor or factors.
In philosophy, Occam's razor (also spelled Ockham's razor or Ocham's razor; Latin: novacula Occami) is the problem-solving principle that recommends searching for explanations constructed with the smallest possible set of elements. It is also known as the principle of parsimony or the law of parsimony (Latin: lex parsimoniae). Attributed to William of Ockham, a 14th-century English philosopher and theologian, it is frequently cited as "Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem", which translates as "Entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity", although Occam never used these exact words. Popularly, the principle is sometimes inaccurately paraphrased as "The simplest explanation is usually the best one." This philosophical razor advocates that when presented with competing hypotheses about the same prediction, one should prefer the one that requires the fewest assumptions and that this is not meant to be a way of choosing between hypotheses that make different predictions.
Occam's Razor - Wikipedia
Find and meet up with people who are doing things that you are interested in doing.
Find people online doing interesting things, meet up with them in real life. Find people who are passionate, who are building things, who are pushing themselves, who dream big, who are mindful and joyful and healthy and friendly and shy and gregarious and adventurous and curious. Befriend them. Be there for them. Be helpful. Make them laugh. These are your people.
Advice for people in their early 20s - Zen Habits
Give people sincere praise about something they have done well or that you appreciate about them before giving them negative feedback or an idea for something they could change or do differently.
"Sandwich every bit of criticism between two heavy layers of praise." One well known strategy for feedback is the “criticism sandwich,” popularized by the above quote from cosmetics maven Mary Kay Ash. In the sandwich, you begin with praise, address the problem, and follow up with more praise. In fact, the more of the conversation you can frame positively, the more likely your recipient is to be in the right frame of mind to make the change you’re looking for.
How to Give and Receive Feedback at Work: The Psychology of Criticism - Buffer
Get started by doing something for just a minute or two, and then get up to applaud yourself for getting started.
If you have to write something, just write a sentence. Then get up, get some water, stretch. Pat yourself on the back for getting started! Now do a little more: write a few more sentences. Get up, take a mental break (don’t go to another website), do a few pushups. Go back, do a bit more. Pretty soon, you’re in the flow of it.
Ways to do what you don’t want to do - Zen Habits
Keep a dated list of tasks and projects you have completed, because looking back on your achievements provides a sense of accomplishment and motivation.
There's something to be said for seeing how much you've gotten done at the end of the day. You know how satisfying it is to cross out items on your to do list, and then look back at the list to see everything you completed? A "done" list, or "anti-to-do list" as Marc Andreessen calls it, works in a similar fashion: you simply take note of each thing you get done during the day. Start out with the date and just list your "done" items underneath. Not only will this help you review your productivity at the end of each day and make you feel better about what you got done, but it can be really useful to keep around as a work log. You might want to look back in weeks or months to come to see what you were working on or how long a project took to complete.
Clever uses for plain text files that can increase your productivity - Lifehacker
Have a growth mindset by believing that you can grow, learn new things, improve your skills and knowledge, and realizing that temporary and recurring failure are a necessary part of learning and growing.
Dweck, like many adults, had learned to hide her frustration and anger, to politely say "I'm not sure I want to play this anymore" instead of knocking over the board. She figured the successful kids would be the same - they’d have tactics for coping with failure instead of getting beaten down by it. But what she found was radically different. The successful kids didn’t just live with failure, they loved it! When the going got tough, they didn’t start blaming themselves; they licked their lips and said "I love a challenge." They’d say stuff like "The harder it gets the harder I need to try."
Believe you can change - Aaron Swartz
Think positively and change your thoughts or mindset to a new way of thinking about something in order to improve your wellbeing and get things done.
You are what you think. You cannot think negatively and have unlimited success. If you think negatively about business and finances [or leisure and relationships, or whatever else you want to change or improve in your life], your subjective experience will be a lack of both, whether or not that is true in reality. Discipline your mind towards the goals of what you want your productivity to look like and start putting the effort in right now to get there. Keep in mind that suffering over your own suffering doesn't work. Know the negative thought patterns you hold which require change and be deliberate in changing them.
8 Ways to radically increase your productivity - The Globe And Mail
Begin with the end of your task, goal, project, or dream in your mind by mentally envisioning it and creating a written description or picture of exactly what you want the end result to look like when the project or vision is completed.
To begin with the end in mind means to start with a clear understanding of your destination. It means to know where you're going so that you better understand where you are now and so that the steps you take are always in the right direction. "Begin with the end in mind" is based on the principle that all things are created twice. There's a mental or first creation, and a physical or second creation to all things. Take the construction of a home, for example. You create it in every detail before you ever hammer the first nail into place. You try to get a very clear sense of what kind of house you want.
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People - Goodreads
Stop thinking about making a million dollars and start thinking about serving a million people. - Dharmesh Shah
