The Only Way to Get Important Things Done

Then set a calendar reminder for the 10th of each month, to login and review this month's payments.

On the 10th, you login to your checking account. Review/adjust the pending autopayments; add anything else that has come in recently; and you're done for the month.

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Whenever he feels the need to comment, he extracts the commented block into a new method and gives it a name that explains the purpose - instead of the comments.

The result is code cut into small self-explaining blocks that reads pretty much like a sentence.

I tried to follow it these last weeks and IMO it works great.

Instead of a comment - use a function name.

I think both are important. Satisfaction is typically the result of accomplishment. Accomplishments give us confidence. Confidence (an amazing subject) gives us the strength to mold and shape our lives into things we want.

As an MMA'ist, you know better than probably anyone here the role that confidence has in a fight. If you are fighting someone new to the ring, you've probably had that sense where you can feel yourself dominating him before that first bell ever rings... and he probably feels it too.

I think Happiness plays an important role in exciting us out of bed in the morning; giving us a spring in our step and helping us chase things that eventually bring us satisfaction.

Happiness recharges our willpower (re: this article) and that helps us move forward towards things that bring us satisfaction and the circle feeds on itself.

My limited understanding of this, right now, is something like:

Happiness > Accomplishment > Satisfaction > Confidence (loop)

Without the little things in life that make you happy, you can still accomplish things, but you will eventually run out of gas or do it begrudgingly and the satisfaction won't come.

From what you describe, I wonder if that was what was going on. You continued to do things that you felt brought you satisfaction (fighting) and would time again get to the precipice of "Accomplishment" and stop, so the opponent would take the win and you would fall back a rung in the ladder and feel crappy and feed this cycle of self doubt.

Was the fighting making you happy or was that missing from the equation and you liked it for other reasons? (stress relief, toughness, etc)

This isn't at all as hard as MMA, but I do something identical to this with tennis. When I play regularly I'm pretty good; strong serve, good returns, fast balls, big topspin, etc.

The thing that frustrated me to the point of stopping playing tennis was that no matter HOW GOOD OR BAD the opponent I played was, I would always lose to them.

It was so obviously a mental handicap that it stunned me into a silent rage when I played.

I could play a 4.5 and hang in with them one day, getting to 3 sets and eventually losing. Then play a 3.0 the next day, go to 3 sets and lose to them.

I don't know if it was a lack of accomplishment on the court such that I could never push forward in the circle of confidence, but I realized it wasn't making me happy. So I stopped.

Much like you said, I always wonder if I just "gave up" -- but I really do subscribe to the "Guilt is bullshit" thought process, so I don't dwell on it. I just figure "Hey, if some day I decide to get back on the court, I'll do it. End of story."

If some day you decide Featherweight is all you want, you'll get back in that ring and do it and the whole will-he/won't-he back and forth in your head will be irrelevant because you will have made up your mind THIS is what you are doing and THIS is what is going to happen.

Sorry if that was preachy... the similarity between what you said an my own fumblings with sports was uncanny so I had a lot to say on the subject ;)

Originally I found the cow-cud-chewing article, and that sounded less spot on, but then I found the "mental rumination" link :)