change
The way we work seems fixed and unchangeable—until it changes, and then we realize it didn’t have to be like that in the first place.
Johann Hari • Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention And How to Think Deeply Again
Go to bed early and get up early. Most people in the West fill their evenings with activity and stimulation. As you get into a yogic way of life, those activities such as “hanging out,” movies, TV, “making out,” etc., cease to exert such a strong influence over you. Then the change in schedule becomes easy. If you have the opportunity to live away
... See moreRam Dass • Be Here Now
“The practices that carry the greatest potential for transformative change are usually counter- instinctual.” I take him to mean that if you’re trying to get better at life in some way– more patient, or better at listening, or less prone to procrastination or anxiety or self- sabotage– the necessary actions are pretty much guaranteed not to feel
... See moreOliver Burkeman • The Awkwardness Principle
The fundamental change we need is a shift from a feeling- centered approach to decisions to a purpose- centered approach. The question isn’t “What do I feel like doing?” but, rather, “what needs to be done?” All the time management systems in the world won’t really help us very much until we’ve developed the capacity to make decisions based on
... See moreGregg Krech • The Art of Taking Action: Lessons From Japanese Psychology
Morning Pages make us more graceful, but that grace is intensely practical. We are nudged to act on our own behalf, and if we balk, we are nudged again. The pages will nag until we are willing to take action. The pages inaugurate change, and they walk us through that change. We do end the bad relationship. We do get sober. We do lose unwanted
... See moreJulia Cameron • The Miracle of Morning Pages: Everything You Always Wanted to Know About the Most Important Artists Way Tool a Special From...
One major advantage of springboard stories is that they combat skepticism and create buy-in. Denning says that the idea of telling stories initially violated his intuition. He had always believed in the value of being direct, and he worried that stories were too ambiguous, too peripheral, too anecdotal. He thought, “Why not spell out the message
... See moreChip Heath • Made to Stick
We have the best chance to change our behaviour over the long term if we start with a realistic idea about the difficulties of behavioural change (Dean 2013).
Sönke Ahrens • How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking
Most of our attempts to become better people, fitter and healthier, more moral/ productive/ organised, and so forth, make this problem worse– because it's basically impossible to pursue any program of personal change without the thought, somewhere in the back of your mind, that successfully completing the change will catapult you into a new and
... See moreOliver Burkeman • What if You Never Sort Your Life Out?
Of course it sounds as if it were the most abject fatalism to have to admit that I am what I am, and that no escape or division is possible. It seems that if I am afraid, then I am “stuck” with fear. But in fact I am chained to the fear only so long as I am trying to get away from it. On the other hand, when I do not try to get away I discover that
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