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Five Boosts 11/24/20 – Change Minds and Get Beter

Anger and hate - Fist punching through glass

Five Easy Ways to Make Your Life Better for 11/24/20

Anger and Hate Hurt You More Than The Target of Your Rage – But You Don’t Have to Feel Them

(Steven Ray Marks | Self Helping Yourself | 1075 words)

Anger and hatred consume your thoughts, mindset, and soul, while doing nothing to improve the world or change those you’re angry at/hate.

To feel anger and hatred less, and take ownership over your own happiness:

  • Minimize exposure to triggers
  • Build the mindset that anger is a choice
  • Stop complaining to break the anger habit

How to Get Better

(Mark Manson | 1425 Words)

Therapy helps because talking over problems separates negative thoughts and feelings from your sense of self, changing unhappiness from the subject to the object.

The same is true of journaling and meditation, which is why they’re effective as well.

Be Specific

(Josh Spector | For The Interested | 725 words)

Specificity forces you to be clear, focused, and unique. Your life will be better if you’re more specific about:

  • Goals
  • Audience
  • Communication
  • Requests
  • Success

Change Someone’s Mind: 6 Secrets From Research

(Eric Barker | Bakadesuyo | 3375 words)

To change someone’s mind, you need to get them to change their own mind. Be a respectful partner, not an adversary.

Ask why they believe their beliefs with genuine curiosity, not to find “gotchas” or attack. Ask how certain they are, and to make comparisons on a scale of 1 to 10. What evidence would change their mind?

And be open to learning from them and changing your own mind.

I found this article in Josh Spector’s For The Interested newsletter. (Josh Spector also wrote the “Be Specific” article above.)

Related: How to Win Allies and How to Stop Making Enemies

The Mistake Smart People Make: Being in Motion vs. Taking Action

(James Clear | 925 words)

Motion is planning and research. Action is doing and creating things.

Sometimes you need to plan and research. But you’ll never accomplish anything without action.

Often people get stuck on motion, thinking it’s productive when really they’re procrastinating.

Set a schedule or hard deadline to take action.

Self Helping Yourself Tweet of the Week

Be sure to follow @YourselfHelping on Twitter.

Enjoy Five Boosts By Self Helping Yourself? Be sure to Subscribe and check out the Self Helping Yourself site.

Enjoy Five Boosts? Please consider buying me a coffee.

I work hard reviewing hundreds of articles a week to find the five that contain the best actionable advice on easy ways to improve your life.

As well as writing the posts for Self Helping Yourself, and now Rockstar Excel.

If you can’t donate, you can always help out by subscribing, recommending Five Boosts, Self Helping Yourself, or any articles to your friends, or by rating/reviewing The Weight Loss Habit on Amazon. (If you’ve read it.)

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Five Boosts 11/17/20 – Good Habits For Productive Days

Five Easy Ways to Make Your Life Better for 11/17/20

7 Easy Strategies for Overcoming Seasonal Affective Disorder

(Steven Ray Marks | Self Helping Yourself | 825 words)

Like a lot of people, I suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder.

Often advice for coping with SAD is exceptionally difficult to do for anyone suffering from it.

You aren’t going to exercise and do yoga when you can barely get out of bed.

Here are some easy suggestions, such as:

  • Assign a name to your SAD
  • Use a light-therapy box
  • Avoid windows at dusk

How to Network When You’re Painfully Shy

(Anouare Abdou | The Ladders | 1175 words)

Networking is important for a lot of careers, but a lot of people struggle with it. To get better:

  • Make a “win list” to boost your confidence
  • Prepare conversation starters and responses
  • Turn it into a game
  • Practice by talking to yourself
  • Be a good listener

I’d add: Don’t go into networking with the mindset “What can these people do for me?” Instead, focus on forming genuine connections, and “What can I do for them?”

14 Things My Highly Productive Friends Have Given Up

(Tim Denning | The Ascent on Medium | 1450 words)

Being more productive doesn’t always mean being a superachiever with infinite energy.

Sometimes it means eliminating things. Such as:

  • Automatically agreeing to give others your time
  • Overworking
  • Listening to ‘preachers of chaos’
  • Having too many goals
  • Being an a–hole

13 Evening Routine Habits to Perfectly End Your Day

(Connie Stemmle | Developing Good Habits | 2875 words)

A good evening routine sets the stage for a productive morning.

Suggestions include:

  • Establish a ‘shut down’ ritual
  • Plan for the next day
  • Spend time with your family
  • Practice something you enjoy
  • Reflect

How to Make Good Habits Stick

(Barrie Davenport | Live Bold and Bloom | 2275 words)

The way to make lasting change is through habits. But how do you build and maintain habits?

  • Start ridiculously small
  • Begin with one habit at a time
  • Have clear intentions
  • Celebrate small Wins
  • Change your mindset

#Self-PromotionThese ideas are similar to the philosophy toward weight loss laid out in my book The Weight Loss Habit. If you enjoy this article, you might want to check out the book.

Bonus Boost

Understanding Serving Size

(Steven Ray Marks | Self Helping Yourself | 550 words)

It can be difficult to know how much you’re eating if the amount doesn’t match up to what the manufacturer lists as a serving size.

Sometimes the labels are intentionally confusing, but even when they aren’t, it can be hard to judge.

Here I walk you through a simple method to figure this out.

Self Helping Yourself Tweet of the Week

Be sure to follow @YourselfHelping on Twitter.

Enjoy Five Boosts By Self Helping Yourself? Be sure to Subscribe and check out the Self Helping Yourself site.

Enjoy Five Boosts? Please consider buying me a coffee.

I work hard reviewing hundreds of articles a week to find the five that contain the best actionable advice on easy ways to improve your life.

As well as writing the posts for Self Helping Yourself, and now Rockstar Excel.

If you can’t donate, you can always help out by subscribing, recommending Five Boosts, Self Helping Yourself, or any articles to your friends, or by rating/reviewing The Weight Loss Habit on Amazon. (If you’ve read it.)

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Win Allies, be More Persuasive, and Get the Most Important Things Done – Five Boosts 6/14/20

Win Allies

Five easy ways to make your life better for June 14, 2020.

How to Win Allies (Part 1 of 2)
(Self Helping Yourself | Steven Ray Marks)
It’s better to win allies than create enemies. We ought to view discussions with those who have different views as an opportunity to learn and/or persuade. But most use it to try to score points in an imaginary game of “Who’s the Worse Person,” which only turns people into enemies. Here’s how to win people over instead.

Stop Confusing Habits For Routines
(Nir and Far | Nir Eyal)
routine is something you do regularly. A habit is something you do automatically. If a routine is unpleasant, difficult, or cognitively demanding, it may never become a habit. Expecting a routine that fits into this category to eventually become a habit will only lead to frustration.

How to get Your Most Important Work Done Today
(Medium/For The Interested | Josh Spector) [soft paywall*]
Pick what matters most, do it first, make it painful to not do it, make a list of things you won’t do, and treat the morning and afternoon like separate days.

Four Words to Make You More Persuasive
(Ladders | Michael Thompson)
Adding, “You will probably refuse” to a request makes people much more likely to agree. It piques their curiosity, and makes them more comfortable by establishing that there’s no pressure.

Five Lessons to Remember When Lockdown Ends
(Greater Good | Jill Suttie)
Being with others is key to happiness. Reducing stress is good for everyone. Showing gratitude matters. We need less stuff than we think. We are stronger when we act together.

[* Medium lets you read a limited number of articles per month, but you can always open the link in an incognito window.]

Self Helping Yourself Tweet of the Week

Some of the best ways to feel happier:
– Be kind, friendly, and genuine, whether or not people “deserve” it.
– Acts of charity.
– Believe in self-efficacy.
– Avoid negativity.
– Celebrate achievements/forgive mistakes, for you/others.
– Recognize the positive in the world.
– Forge connections and community

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