Leonard Ng

Horror: The Ultimate Procrastination Inducer

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Image by Krzysztof Krupa.
Image by Krzysztof Krupa.

Have you ever felt that you simply can’t get started or simply can’t focus your attention on a specific task?

It’s like the task has a force field around it, a sort of deflector shield that keeps moving you away on a tangent to go start doing something else.

This task could be anything.

It could be writing a report, preparing a lesson, filing your taxes, crafting an ad, going for a run, killing a roach, reading a textbook, sending an email, making a phone call, filling out a form, cleaning your kitchen.

It could be a big project that feels too large to tackle, or a small project that requires a significant mental shift from what you’ve been doing.

Whatever it is, it feels like the task is beyond you. You procrastinate like mad. It escapes you, it deflects you, you’re completely paralysed when you try to deal with it, your brain somehow seems to shut down and stop working.

And whenever you try to get it done you always seem to wind up doing something completely unrelated instead.

This happens over and over again, becoming increasingly traumatic each time.

I have a name for this state of affairs.

I call it horror.

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The Advantages of Optimism (and of Pessimism)

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emotions
Image by Gratisography.

Meditation helps us to see things as they really are, unclouded by our emotions and impulses.

Through diligent practice we learn to bring our minds under control, and so become more able to act wisely in the world.

That said, we humans do have a natural tendency to view the world through two major perception filters. Both of these can significantly affect our lives.

These two filters are optimism and pessimism.

And both of them can be good for you.

What Are Optimism and Pessimism?

Let’s think of optimism and pessimism as emotional lenses that affect the way we perceive the world.

Optimism can loosely be defined as a positive view of the world: the belief that life is generally good and/or that life will get better.

Pessimism is the opposite: a view of the world based on the belief that life is generally bad and/or that life will get worse.

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The Art of Momentum: How to Actually Finish What You Set Out to Do

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waterfall
Image by Isabella Jusková.

Those who make no mistakes have policies which naturally lead to victory. — The Art of War, 4

So you’ve made your resolutions for the new year, and hopefully at least one or two of them are achievement-based goals. As I pointed out in my last entry, achievement-based goals are the ones that give you the qualities money can’t buy: discipline, resourcefulness, commitment, and skill.

So how can we make sure that we successfully achieve what we have set out to do?

The answer lies in momentum.

Momentum is nothing more or less than the deliberate organization of your goals in a way that makes success inevitable.

Momentum is about creating a process and routine that will take you to your goal in the easiest possible manner. Then, once you have crafted your process, all you have to do is commit to it.

The process will then do all the heavy lifting for you.

Creating a Process that Works

When I was in the military, the army had a very simple way to increase the number of pull-ups new recruits could do:

  1. Drop by the conveniently located pull-up bar before lunch and before dinner.
  2. Pull till you can’t pull any more.
  3. Repeat.

It worked.

This process exemplifies the four most important principles behind any successful process: simplicity, convenience, frequency, and humility.

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What Kind of Goals Are You Setting?

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Sunrise road
Image by Karsten Würth.

It’s the start of a new year now, when many of us lay out our personal goals and aspirations for our planet’s next revolution around the sun. This is the season when we make our resolutions: statements of purpose for the changes we want to bring about in our lives.

Some goals, however, will make a much bigger difference to your life than others. So today I’m going to talk about the kinds of resolutions that will allow you to hold your head high by the time the year is done.

Let’s get to it.

Two Kinds of Goals

The goals people set themselves tend to fall into two categories: consumption-based goals and achievement-based goals.

The two differ in what they require from you. The first chiefly requires money. The second chiefly requires effort.

Let’s look at them both in greater detail.

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