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How I Tricked Myself Into Being Awesome

japhr.blogspot.com

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Re: How I Tricked Myself Into Being Awesome

#41

Post by fendale »

regularfry wrote: post #14

This doesn't work for me. I've tried several times, but I just can't make it stick.

Maybe doing it daily is too often to get started, certainly if you have a lot of other stuff going on in your life too.

I set myself a target of writing one good blog post a week about a year ago, with the target of having 52 posts in a year. Right now, I have about 31 with 1 month to go - I am pretty pleased with that, especially since I have been on at least 4 weeks holidays through the year where I left my laptop firmly at home.

Re: How I Tricked Myself Into Being Awesome

#43

Post by huggyface »

marcamillion wrote: post #42

slow clap This is pretty awesome. The best way to ensure that you truly understand something, is to attempt teaching it. This is a technique I am starting to use in my quest to be more awesome too...doubt I will write a book, but you never know.

The best way to ensure that you truly understand something, is to attempt teaching it.

To put the foot on the other shoe, however, the last person I ever want to learn from is someone who is learning for the sake of teaching. Such knowledge is usually the thinnest of veneers.

Re: How I Tricked Myself Into Being Awesome

#44

Post by ramblerman »

makeshifter wrote: post #8

I think you're patting yourself on the back too much. I was reading about a woman in Cambodia who escaped from torture and near death with her two children and survived in the jungle for 3 years. They never stayed in the same place two days in a row and ate nothing but roots and bugs. Despite this mother's best efforts, her youngest child starved to death and died in her arms. A few years later, she founded a safehou…

Ima let you finish but Beyonce had the best album of all time!

Re: How I Tricked Myself Into Being Awesome

#45

Post by krschultz »

its_so_on wrote: post #35
anthony_franco wrote: post #2

Jerry Seinfeld used this exact technique to become a great comic. As told by software developer Brad Isaac when he asked Jerry for career advice[0]: He told me to get a big wall calendar that has a whole year on one page and hang it on a prominent wall. The next step was to get a big red magic marker. He said for each day that I do my task of writing, I get to put a big red X over that day. "After a few days you'll h…

There's only one problem. When you do break the long chain you're out for the count. When was the last time you heard anything from Seinfeld after his long-running eponymous show was cancelled? How are you supposed to motivate yourself to start a new chain, when it means you'll be working on this shit for the next 3,000 days?

Don't knock it until you try it. I've found this to be the most effective technique for keeping myself on track.

It has far more to do with creating a habit than anything specific about this 'chain'. The book "Switch" covers this really well, you basically have a limited amount of self-control to use each day. Habits do not tap the self-control bank.

So in my case, I really want to make working on my sideproject a priority. For a while I tried to work on it as much as possible, but I failed to really motivate myself often.

Now I have a chain going. Everyday I wake up before work and do something. Whether its 5 minutes or 3 hours, everyday I boot up my computer and make a little bit of progress. The alarm goes off and a couple minutes later I have my dev tools open and a bowl of cereal in front of me and I'm working, no thought required.

I notice my progress has improved dramatically because of this.

Re: How I Tricked Myself Into Being Awesome

#47

Post by sebphfx »

goblin89 wrote: post #36
makeshifter wrote: post #8

I think you're patting yourself on the back too much. I was reading about a woman in Cambodia who escaped from torture and near death with her two children and survived in the jungle for 3 years. They never stayed in the same place two days in a row and ate nothing but roots and bugs. Despite this mother's best efforts, her youngest child starved to death and died in her arms. A few years later, she founded a safehou…

Thing is, the fact that you give more of your respect to that woman than to Chris changes little. True, we can try and “rate” these accomplishments, and that woman probably would receive higher “mark”. However, it obviously makes little sense—because we're unable to judge the outcome, since causal relationships are too complex; because what matters is doing things, not recognizing and/or ranking others' achievements.

the woman didn't decide her fate. It was accidental. He accomplished something with resilience. Why do we have to compare everything in terms of heroism? Who cares about heros. The lady wasn't a heroine neither is he.

Re: How I Tricked Myself Into Being Awesome

#48

Post by coob »

its_so_on wrote: post #35
anthony_franco wrote: post #2

Jerry Seinfeld used this exact technique to become a great comic. As told by software developer Brad Isaac when he asked Jerry for career advice[0]: He told me to get a big wall calendar that has a whole year on one page and hang it on a prominent wall. The next step was to get a big red magic marker. He said for each day that I do my task of writing, I get to put a big red X over that day. "After a few days you'll h…

There's only one problem. When you do break the long chain you're out for the count. When was the last time you heard anything from Seinfeld after his long-running eponymous show was cancelled? How are you supposed to motivate yourself to start a new chain, when it means you'll be working on this shit for the next 3,000 days?

He retired with his bucket loads of money, presumably.

Re: How I Tricked Myself Into Being Awesome

#49

Post by eee_c »

tangue wrote: post #31
eee_c wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, but I think that's the point. My understanding of the topics is anything but superficial. If you follow along with my daily posts, I think you can see me work through initial infatuation, recognition of limitations, and finally deeper understanding. To be sure, I could know more. But I think you're being dismissive by characterizing this as superficial.

To be clear : I'm dismissive about the title but admiring the results. I'm just tired of reading blog posts where everything from jquery plugins to pancakes recipes are "awesome"

Gotcha. The title is intentionally over the top and definitely worthy of, at least, a skeptical attitude. I do have some awesome pancake recipes though...

Re: How I Tricked Myself Into Being Awesome

#50

Post by emehrkay »

anthony_franco wrote: post #2

Jerry Seinfeld used this exact technique to become a great comic. As told by software developer Brad Isaac when he asked Jerry for career advice[0]: He told me to get a big wall calendar that has a whole year on one page and hang it on a prominent wall. The next step was to get a big red magic marker. He said for each day that I do my task of writing, I get to put a big red X over that day. "After a few days you'll h…

This is the reason why I use ["I done this today"](https://idonethis.com/). I have it send me an email everynight at 11pm and I respond back with what I did for the day. I cant wait to look at it in a year.
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