Go Easy on Yourself

Posted on January 2, 2019 by admin

Some people are very hard on themselves. They’ll heavily reprimand themselves for the slightest mistake and show themselves little to no compassion or understanding. This can be most easily seen when they’re trying to learn something new or do self-improvement work.

If you’re like most people, then chances are that you’ve had the habits and behaviors you’re working to change for as long as you can remember. Your friends, family members, coworkers, and other people close to you probably created environments that caused you to adopt those tendencies in the first place or make it easy for you to continue them in the present, or maybe both. It takes a great deal of time and focus to change habits, so please, give yourself a break. You may need years of consistent, dedicated effort to undo behavior patterns that have been ingrained and continually reinforced for decades.

When it comes to learning something new, mistakes are inevitable. There can be even more mistakes if you’re learning another method of doing a familiar activity that you’ve gotten used to doing in a specific way. After a while of practicing the new method, it’ll become much easier to use it instead of the old method; eventually, it’ll be second nature for you to use the new method. In the meantime, be kind to yourself, remind yourself that you’re doing your best, and keep in mind that you’ll get there in time.

It’s taken me a long time to learn this stuff and apply it to my life. I’m thankful for a close friend who has consistently supported me, pointed out my strengths, and pleaded with me to give myself a break. Gentle guidance works better than stern correction whenever I teach someone a skill (such as juggling, for instance) or help them when they’re struggling, so it makes sense that this would also be the case when I apply it to myself. This has made it easier for me to show love to myself and treat myself like someone I care about; this, in turn, has made it easier to show love to other people. I find I can love and support other people more effectively since I started taking care of myself; it feels more genuine, consistent, and abundant in my own life, so out of that abundance comes plenty for others. I hope something in here spoke to you and gave you something practical that you can use to improve your life. Take care and I’ll see you in the next post.

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5 Books That Will Help You Succeed This Year

Posted on January 1, 2019 by admin

Happy New Year! I hope you all had fun and safe celebrations last night. Since we’ve officially enter 2019 now, I thought I would dedicate my first post of the year to a subject I’ve talked about quite a bit in this blog: books. In this case, I’m going to focus on the 5 books that I think gave me what I needed to make 2018 the best year of my life. These books helped me, among other things, improve my communication, make better use of my time, improve my mindsets, have inner peace, and take control of my habits. I have no doubt that they’ll help you tremendously with whatever you want to do this year, so I highly encourage you to check them out if you haven’t already. Without further ado, here they are.

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

This book contains so much good stuff. Of all the books on this list, this one covers the most ground and comes the closest to being a how-to guide for life. Stephen Covey absolutely knocked it out of the park with this one, especially since he included a quick-reference index near the end of the book so you can quickly and easily find anything you’re looking for. Any one of these habits can improve your life and adopting all of them can take you to the next level. This year, if you only read one of the books I’ve mentioned at some point, consider choosing this one.

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The Power of Habit

Another book about habits, this one explains why we develop habits, how we can change them, and how even seemingly insignificant changes can lead to huge improvements. If you have some New Year’s resolutions, this book can help you stick with them and make them part of your regular routine. It’s full of interesting stories and simple explanations of some complex processes, which makes it an intriguing and valuable read from beginning to end.

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The Four Agreements

Having the proper perspective in life is incredibly freeing. This book talks about different mindsets: some trap us in despair while others offer us the freedom to live our best lives. It’s much easier to change how you react in any given situation than it is to change how other people act. There’s a lot of stuff in this book that shows you how to do this and paints a picture of the life you can have by following the four agreements.

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The Power of Now

Can you be free of thought if you want? Do you have the ability to control your thinking? If not, this book will show you how to do so. Mindfulness and presence have done me a world of good since I started practicing them. In this book, Eckhart Tolle explores the mind, consciousness, ego, suffering, death, the present moment, and several other subjects in this fascinating book. This is one of the most helpful books I’ve ever read. If you’re looking for ways to relieve stress, increase your focus, and live in the present moment, this is the book for you.

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The 5 Love Languages

Gary Chapman explores different ways to show and receive love in this great little book. Family members, friends, married couples, and virtually everyone else can benefit from learning how other people feel loved and showing them love in that way. Several of the stories in the book demonstrate that there’s no need to wait for someone else to change; one person taking the initiative to communicate in the other’s love language on a regular basis can be the starting point for turning a broken relationship into a thriving one. Good communication is essential for properly interacting with others and this book contains a lot of wisdom in that area.

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Reflections: My Favorite Things from 2018

Posted on December 31, 2018 by admin

It’s safe to say that 2018 was the best year of my life. So many amazing and wonderful things happened from beginning to end. Like every year, there were also challenges, but I was able to handle them much better this year than I handled much smaller challenges in previous years. This year has felt long to me in the best way; I feel like I’ve had much more than 365 days at this point to learn, grow, practice, and explore. It’s going to be hard to let this year go but I take comfort in knowing that I can continue all the amazing things that I started this year, make future years even better, and look back on the good times from this year whenever I like. There are several awesome moments that stand out when I think back on everything I did, so I’d like to share with you my favorite things from this incredible year.

  1. Growing a lot as a person. This is only the second year that I’ve seriously focused on personal growth, and I did much more self-improvement work this year than I did last year. They say knowing is half the battle, which is true, but it’s action that gets results. I’ve spent a lot of time this year working on applying what I know wherever I can: taking care of my body, nourishing my soul, feeding my brain, working through my emotions, developing better habits and breaking old ones, improving my communication and interactions with other people, etc. I’m in a much better place overall now than I’ve ever been or ever thought I’d be, and I’m just getting started. I can’t wait to see where I’ll go as I continue working on this stuff and getting better one step at a time.
  2. Reading and learning so much new and useful stuff. I’ve probably read more books this year than in any other year. Except for my annual reading of How to Win Friends and Influence People, every book I read was one that I either started at some point in the past but never finished or had never read before this year. Most of the books I’ve read this year, several of which are among my all-time favorite books, have been practical, self-improvement books with lessons that have vastly improved the quality of my life since I started putting them into practice. I’ve also read a few books that just looked interesting and gave me an enjoyable evening even if they didn’t give me any useful life hacks. Reading so many great, insightful books has given me a better understanding of myself, other people, and the world in which we live; I can see connections between things that I never noticed before and navigate each day more smoothly and easily than I could before. I’ve still got a few dozen books on my shelf to read and I have more on my list to get as I work through those, so I’ll be reading and learning for the rest of my life.
  3. Going on an amazing day trip. This was the most enjoyable day trip I’ve ever been on. I went with a group of friends to Interlachen, Florida to pick blueberries in the morning. After that, we stopped off in Palatka for a nice lunch. We finished by walking around St. Augustine, exploring some of the many cool sights there, and doing a bit of dancing. That whole day was relaxing, laid back, and full of one pleasant experience after another. I couldn’t have asked for a nicer day.
  4. Successfully organizing several fun events. Though I’ve organized events in the past, this was by far my most ambitious year for event planning. I successfully planned and carried out 5 events this year: a beach trip toward the end of summer, a watch party for the movie Airplane!, an escape room, an afternoon of juggling in the park on World Juggling Day, and a Secret Santa gift exchange. I was the primary organizer for each of those events, but they would have fallen flat without everyone who went to them. I think more people are interested in going to events than they are in planning them, so I’m glad I took the initiative and got the ball rolling on them. They each made for some fun times and great memories that I’ll treasure for years, and they were great practice for some bigger, more ambitious events and projects that I plan to bring to fruition in my life.
  5. Going on the Classic City Swing trip. By far the best, smoothest trip I’ve ever been on. I loved going to Classic City Swing 7, swing dancing, learning some cool new things, enjoying 6 days off of work, and spending time with friends both in Athens and in Atlanta. I couldn’t have asked for a better vacation and I’m so glad I decided to go.
  6. Using Duolingo for over 300 days to learn Spanish. This is the longest stretch of time that I’ve consistently worked on learning another language. I’m far from fluent in Spanish, but I’m more comfortable with the language now than I’ve ever been before. Working with Duolingo has given me a solid foundation that I’m sure will prove useful as I continue practicing and steadily improving.
  7. Starting and sticking to my blog. It’s hard to believe that I’ve only been doing this since midway through August and I’m amazed that I’ve been able to put up a new post every day. This has been an incredible journey thus far for several reasons. In addition to the great feedback I get about the blog from people I know in real life, I think it’s made me a better, more creative writer. Having to constantly think up and write out new ideas has definitely improved my writing process and speed and streamlined my thinking. I think it’s improved the quality of my writing as well. Additionally, I love sharing my ideas with other people and seeing the things that others have been thinking but never mentioned to me until they read about them on my blog. Starting my blog was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made and I’m going to keep it going as long as I can.
  8. Enjoying a wonderful Christmas. Christmas is the biggest holiday of the year that I celebrate and this was the best in recent memory. I loved getting to spend a day resting, spending time with family, and trying out my new stuff. And, since it fell on a Tuesday this year and I have Wednesdays off, I got to have an extra day of rest after the big day itself. It’s rare for me to get two days off in a row, so this was a special treat. I can’t remember ever having a bad Christmas but I also can’t remember having one that went as smoothly as this one. It gave me a great bit of time to rest and reset toward the end of this incredible year.
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Zoom Out

Posted on December 30, 2018 by admin

Sometimes my thoughts are overwhelming, especially when they’re negative. The unceasing torrent of thought can surround me and make me feel like I’m drowning. This doesn’t happen all the time or even as much as it used to, but it still happens every so often. In situations of overwhelming thought, it’s easy for me to get stuck on a particular thought or a particular kind of thought. Maybe I’ll keep replaying a painful moment or a series of painful moments. The negativity builds upon itself and causes increasingly greater suffering in the process. When this happens, I find it helpful to zoom out.

Instead of remaining fixated on one moment, I’ll take a look at the bigger picture: what I’m doing with the rest of my week, something that’s going on in another part of the world, my life plans, etc. That reminds me that this moment is only one of many in my life and that it, like all the others, will pass; instead of remaining my sole focus, it becomes just one of a number of things that I can think about if I want to. I can then look at whatever is causing me grief and see it with a greater sense of perspective. Even just a bit of distance can take me from feeling overwhelmed to feeling at ease.

I find it helpful to remind myself that I’ve made it through every stressful moment of my life and then use life hacks to make the present moment less stressful. This could involve, among a number of things, remembering a joyful occasion, thinking of something that makes me laugh, using loving-kindness to wish happiness on someone else, controlling my breathing, relaxing my body, or doing a physical activity that I enjoy. Giving myself some distance from my stressful thoughts allows me to go back to them and work through them more effectively than trying to stop them outright. I’ve found that gives me a much better chance of actually being able to quiet my mind and achieve inner peace instead of just temporarily burying the stress by distracting myself with other thoughts. I hope this gives you a useful tool for when you feel overwhelmed by your thoughts. Please let me know if it helps you and, as always, I’ll keep sharing stuff that helps me as I come across it.

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Communication Rhythms

Posted on December 29, 2018 by admin

There are different rhythms within communication. Some people tend toward rhythms involving big groups where everyone jumps in and out of quick, energetic conversations; others prefer slower, more relaxed exchanges with fewer people. There are some people who can easily move between the two, but most that I’ve seen lean toward one or the other. If someone strongly prefers one type of environment but ends up in the other, they will probably feel uncomfortable and out of place until they leave. For example, a reserved person in a highly active setting will likely feel overwhelmed and retreat inward. They may like the people they’re around and have interest in the subjects being brought up, but the sheer number people around them, uncertainty about when to jump in, and fear of looking bad if what they say gets a poor reaction (or, worse, no reaction) prevents them from relaxing and joining in the fun. They’d have a much better time discussing the same subjects in a much smaller group, especially if that group consists of other people who are also reserved.

This holds for everyone, regardless of their preferences for group interactions. Their preferences align with their own rhythms of how they think and communicate, and they tend to seek out others with similar rhythms. As a result, they grow closer to those people and can quickly become friends with them. They can still enjoy the company of people who have different rhythms and even be friends with them, but they will usually prefer being around those who share their rhythms.

As you may have guessed, I am generally more reserved around other people. I can be quite outgoing in certain situations: at my job, when I’m performing, and when I’m with people I know very well and around whom I’m comfortable. But overall, I’m usually on the quieter side and tend to do more listening than talking. When I do say something, whether it’s a joke or something serious, I try to make my words count instead of just speaking for the sake of speaking. Those are the reasons that I prefer small groups over big groups and why I tend to avoid situations that have big groups consisting mostly or entirely of people I don’t know. Now that I’ve talked about my communication rhythms, I’m interested to hear about yours. Do you prefer small groups or big groups, or can you be content in either one? Thanks for reading and commenting and I’ll see you in the next post.

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My Nighttime Routine

Posted on December 28, 2018 by admin

Something I’ve done this year that I think has made a big positive difference for me is develop a good nighttime routine. Like a lot of other things I’ve done, I’ve assembled this routine gradually and without much initial conscious effort, so it’s taken me some time to notice it and deconstruct it. Now that I have, I thought I’d share it with you and see if you find value in it. Without further ado, here’s my nighttime routine.

I avoid eating a lot of sugar or caffeine or drink much of any liquid a few hours before bed, and I typically have my last meal well before I call it a night. When I’m ready to start winding down, I sit in my zero gravity chair, lean back, and read a chapter or two of a book. That helps relax me and put me in the mindset to go to sleep. Then I might stretch my legs for a few minutes before I finish up my pre-bed routine of taking out my contacts (or taking off my glasses, depending on the night), brushing my teeth, and using the bathroom one last time. After that, I’ll lay in bed with my lights off and fan on as I spend a bit of time on my Kindle; I turn on the blue shade setting, which prevents blue electronic light from getting into my face and helps me sleep better. I try to avoid things that make me angry or sad and instead focus on things I like, especially things that I find funny, uplifting, or relaxing.

Once I start feeling sufficiently tired, I put my Kindle away and sit on the edge of my bed as I breathe deeply and slowly for thirty seconds or so. I’ll use this time to expel any negative energy I notice so that I’m not dwelling on it as I try to sleep. Because I do a lot during the day to expel or work through negativity, I usually don’t have much to deal with at bedtime. Then I lie down and begin relaxing my body, starting from my toes and working up to my head, making sure to release any tension I feel as I go. Before I know it, I find myself in a dream or waking up hours later. Even though I often wake up briefly a few times during the night, more often than not, I still feel good in the morning.

Since I developed this routine, I’ve found it consistently helps me fall asleep easily and relatively quickly and wake up feeling refreshed in the morning (as long as I get seven or more hours of sleep, that is). This is a wonderful change of pace from before, when I didn’t know if I’d go to sleep easily or spend upwards of an hour wide awake. I’ve also noticed that my mind is much quieter at night now than it was before I developed this routine. This makes it easier to go to sleep since I’m not thinking about everything under the sun and gives me more pleasant, peaceful dreams. I’m fortunate to not have insomnia, sleep apnea, or any other issues that can make it almost impossible to get a good night’s sleep, so I don’t know how effective this routine would be for someone with those issues. But it works well for me, a guy with a highly active mind, energetic body, and near-constant desire to be doing something. I hope something in this routine can help you too. Sweet dreams, friends.

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Fun with Anti-Logic

Posted on December 27, 2018 by admin

Most of the people I see on a regular basis are either nice or at the very least pleasant/unassuming. It’s pretty rare in my work, my dancing, or anywhere else in my usual routines that I run across an ornery person. When I do meet someone like that, I’m unprepared for what they say and do, which makes it easy for them to walk all over me.

I started thinking about this stuff after a recent encounter with a customer at my job. He stopped me to talk about picking up an appliance he’d just bought, I asked a clarifying question, and that’s when everything went off the rails. He became very aggressive, wouldn’t let me finish a sentence, and didn’t listen to my attempts to explain what I meant. Once I realized that it would be a waste of time to continue trying to reason with him, I told him he could take it out himself if he wanted (which is what he asked to do initially) and then went back to the customer I was helping before he stopped me. The customer I was initially helping spoke up on my behalf during that ordeal, which I greatly appreciated; another customer who also witnessed it offered me some supportive words later on. Their efforts helped me get through that onslaught of negativity.

Of all the customers I’ve been around at each of my jobs, this guy was by far the rudest and least reasonable. I didn’t see this coming at all and I had no plan in mind for dealing with someone like him. My normal strategy of remaining calm and explaining myself in the hopes that doing so would defuse the situation failed, and for a long time after, I blamed myself for what happened. It took a lot of life hacks focused around breathing, relaxing, and reframing myself, as well as a good amount of time after the situation, to get me into a state of mind to think about this more clearly. When I got to that state of mind, I realized that he probably would have acted aggressively regardless of what I said, and that I gave him no cause to get upset; for whatever reason, he chose to react that way. That made it easier to avoid taking his reaction personally and helped me move onto formulating a plan in case something like this happens again.

Since I’m so used to being around nice people who share several of my interests, I’ve forgotten that we humans are irrational and respond poorly to reason and logic. This explains why my efforts to employ those in that situation failed. That lead me to this thought: if logic doesn’t work, why not try anti-logic? By that, I don’t mean reverse psychology wherein I ask someone to do the opposite of what I want them to do in the hopes that that will nudge them in my desired direction. I mean throw logic completely out the window and just be weird. This should be easy for me as a weird guy who grew up watching a lot of classic Looney Tunes shorts and who draws a lot of comedic inspiration from Bugs Bunny, the Marx Brothers, and Buster Keaton. Employing this strategy against an angry person trying to argue with me would probably throw them off and leave them unsure of what to do next. Instead of explaining myself or trying to reason with them, which they’ll probably be expecting, I’ll try changing the subject to something bizarre, making animal noises, singing a song, speaking in another language, lying down on the floor, etc. I won’t touch or do anything to scare or intimidate the other person, just give them a fun little show and see if that does the trick.

I got this idea from listening to Derren Brown tell Joe Rogan about his experience with this earlier in his life. Instead of trying to reason with or fight a drunk guy who got in his face, he changed the subject and started talking about the height of the wall around his house. This confused the guy sufficiently to drain away his aggressive energy and stop him from being a threat. This is also similar to the way Tony Robbins uses state breaks as explained in this video from Charisma on Command. Although I had heard of both of those ideas before the incident at my job, I hadn’t yet worked out a plan to use them. Now that I’ve worked through my feelings from that situation and thought a lot about what to do if it happens again, I feel much more confident that I’ll be able to reduce tensions and defuse an aggressive situation if necessary. If you’ve tried this sort of strategy in a tense situation, please let me know what you did and how it went. I’d love to hear about it. For now, though, That’s All, Folks!

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A Wonderful Christmas

Posted on December 26, 2018 by admin

Another Christmas has come and gone. Like most others, I greatly enjoyed this one and did a lot of things that I do every year. I also did some new, special things, which is what I think will make this Christmas stand out in years to come. I’ll tell you a bit about it in this post.

Although I’ve woken up early in previous years, this year I slept in until shortly before 9:30 am. I then scrolled through my Kindle a bit before doing my morning routine and joining everyone else to open presents. We took our time giving each other the gifts and gradually making our way through them until there were none left to open. I then spent much of the afternoon trying out some of the things I got.

The things that I had the most fun trying were my hammock straps, my unicycle, and my headphones. I got a hammock for Christmas last year and, although the rope that it came with worked well enough, I’d heard that hammock straps are easier to use and better for use with trees, so I’d been wanting some for a while. After we finished with presents, I went to the backyard to test them. The straps were much longer than I had thought and it took a while for me to find some trees that were far enough apart to work. Once I found some good trees and set the straps properly, though, I found that they worked like a charm. I spent a good while relaxing in my hammock, enjoying the cool air, shade, and peace. It was nice to pause the day for a bit and just marinate in the moment out there.

Next, I grabbed my unicycle and went to the driveway. My dad had helped me put it together earlier and all it needed was some air in the tire. At the time of this riding, I’ve never successfully ridden a unicycle for more than a few seconds, and, before yesterday, it had been years since I even touched one. However, I’ve always wanted to learn to ride one, and I’ve learned and gotten good at enough things through consistent practice to know that I’ll eventually master the unicycle if I stick with it. So I spent a bit of time getting on and riding for a second or two before losing control. Unlike a bicycle, which will often bring you to the ground when you’re learning to ride it, a unicycle can fall out from underneath you and leave you standing. The bigger issue with learning to ride a unicycle is protecting your shins; it only took one good blow to my shin from a pedal to remind me to put on my shin guards. This made the remainder of my practice time much more enjoyable and free of pain. I had to stop and get ready to leave not long after I started, so I put it aside and came back to it after I got back home. In both practice sessions, I had a few moments where I managed a short, controlled ride of a second or two. Those moments felt great and gave me the motivation to continue. Now all I have to do is make it part of my routine to practice a bit each day and I should be able to ride it in a relatively short amount of time.

My headphones were the most unexpected delight of any of my presents. I’ve had several pairs of headphones and always manage to damage or destroy them, usually by messing up the cord. These headphones, however, are cordless and work through Bluetooth. I charged them for a while and tried them out when I got back home. The directions were easy to follow and soon I had them paired with both my Kindle and my phone. I experimented a bit with them to see how they worked and then used them for most of that evening to watch videos or listen to relaxing things on YouTube. There is a cord that I can use if I want, but I think I’ll avoid it. I like the Bluetooth feature and the freedom of movement it gives me. Plus I think going cordless decreases my chances of damaging or destroying these, and I want to keep them as long as possible since they’re the nicest, most comfortable headphones I’ve had.

In the mid-afternoon, I went to visit with my older sister and her family. Between the food, more presents, A Christmas Story in the background, and a few more things, it was a nice visit to close out the afternoon and make for a good little trip. That’s a theme that ran through this day: finding joy in small things. Sure, the presents were nice, but what I really enjoyed was the opportunities they gave me to relax, have fun, and learn something new. My day was full of nice little moments like that, so it felt like several days in one, especially since I was off work. This stuff makes for a wonderful Christmas, but it works with any day in the year. My plan is to do my best to make every day feel like Christmas and be grateful for the opportunities to do so. I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas and enjoy what remains of the winter holidays this year.

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Distractions and Working Through Feelings

Posted on December 25, 2018 by admin
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Have you ever had a negative experience during the day and mostly pushed it to the side but then couldn’t stop thinking about it while you tried to fall asleep that night? I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve done that. I have an idea as to why this occurs and some things in mind that may help manage it.

Most people have tons of distractions around them during the day: electronic devices, books, other people, animals, and so on. It’s easy to get lost in one or more of these and be able to temporarily block out negative thoughts. As night approaches, however, things begin to settle down and the distractions start to recede. It becomes harder to find something to keep those negative thoughts at bay and they seem to slowly become more powerful. When it’s time for bed and there are no more external distractions (the lights are off, electronic devices are put away, everyone else is gone, etc), thoughts that were merely background noise earlier can become overwhelming. At that point, it’s much more difficult to simply shrug them off and focus on something else.

I think another part of this involves the failure to work through negative thoughts. This is understandable as working through negativity requires facing painful memories and that’s never a fun or enjoyable process. However, the alternative, which is pushing them to the side or burying them deep down, causes a lot of trouble over time. Emotions that are not transmuted or even fully acknowledged will reappear at some point. Maybe they’ll come back in the form of a nightmare, a sharp remark directed at a loved one, or a general feeling of unease. Someone who snaps at you may be using you as a target for frustrations that they encountered long before your paths ever crossed; because they didn’t work through their pain, they eventually took it out on you, punishing you for their own shortcomings.

This is why I think it’s important to spend some time in solitude and with as few distractions as possible. Getting away from the noise of modern life prevents you from seeking refuge from your mind in things outside yourself and forces you to confront whatever’s bothering you. After you’ve let your thoughts run for a bit (even if they’re thoughts you’d rather not have but feel like you have to acknowledge or express properly), you can focus on slowing your breathing and gradually entering a state of presence. Then you can work on healing that past pain and transmuting it through reframing yourself, giving yourself a state break, remind yourself that you aren’t responsible for someone else mistreating you, etc; this way, you can truly move past the pain without it sticking around to cause problems later on.

Although I’ve been doing most of the above for a good while now, I only just recently started feeling through whatever emotions arise, even ones I’d rather avoid. I think I was suppressing negative emotions for a long time while thinking that they weren’t getting to me. Since I started working through them more and feeling them fully, I’ve felt a lot better. I think being honest with myself about my situation also helps; I think I was simply mistaken about how I felt rather than intentionally deceiving myself, but either way something was getting lost in translation. I still find distractions (especially taking cold showers and doing other challenging activities that increase my mental toughness by getting my focus out of my head and into my body) to be temporarily useful by keeping the negativity at bay until I have time to work through it, but I’m trying not to use them excessively anymore so that the negativity doesn’t come back during quiet moments. This video from Charlie at Charisma on Command does a great job breaking down and explaining these concepts. I had written most of this post before I watched the video, so I was pleasantly surprised to find another great moment of serendipity and see how much it overlaps with my thoughts on this subject. Charlie’s videos have helped me out a lot and I hope they, as well as my post, can help you too, especially with incredibly important yet seldom-discussed subjects such as working through negativity.

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And Action!

Posted on December 24, 2018 by admin

I’ve had a lot of personal growth this year, probably more than any other year of my life. This isn’t the first year that I wanted to make progress or tried to do it, but it has been by far the most successful year in that regard. I think I’ve had so much success this year because, in addition to the fact that I’ve read so much more about self-improvement this year than ever before, I’ve been putting the stuff I’ve learned into practice.

When it comes to practical life skills, knowledge without action is useless. Someone who knows little but practices it regularly is better off than someone who knows a lot and never uses it. I benefited a lot from my initial reading of How to Win Friends and Influence People and subsequent implementation of its recommendations. This was last year, well before I had read any of the other self-improvement books on my shelf, so even that little bit of wisdom made my life noticeably better. And when I stopped practicing what I had learned by reading that book, I began to run into the same problems I faced before I read it; revisiting the book and putting its lesson into practice once again made those problems disappear just as before.

The Bible talks about the importance of works in two different chapters in the Book of James. I remembered those passages when I started thinking about what to write in this post and they gave me some direction. I’ve done enough research and picked up enough life hacks to get me through many situations. Fortunately, I’ve also put those things to work so I’m able to navigate those situations better than I could in previous years. I’m a work in progress but, as long as I keep working, there will always be progress.

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