Tag: Self Improvement

Categories
Questions

Finding the Edge of Your Comfort Zone

You’ve probably heard the saying, “life begins at the end of your comfort zone.”

But how are we supposed to find the edges of our comfort zones so that we can push past them?

That’s what we’re going to focus on for the next few weeks of Quality Questions, starting right now.

The first thing you should know is that the fence around your comfort zone is fear.

It’s also helpful to recognize that you probably don’t have one single comfort zone. Instead, you have varying levels of comfort in different areas of life (relationships, work, spirituality, etc).

Let’s start with work. Ask yourself:

If you were truly fearless, what would you be doing to make a living?

What if you knew that you couldn’t fail?

And you weren’t worried about what anyone else would say.

Imagine if you could wave a magic wand and instantly change your reality.

What would you do then?

Think deeply about a means of making money that would make you feel fully alive.

Maybe your career would be more creative?

Perhaps you would commit to a global cause that you care about?

Maybe you would finally start the company you’ve been dreaming of?

Write down what a career without fear looks like and use that as a guide to the direction you should lean in your future choices.

Quality Questions make it easy to apply the key lessons from the best self improvement books and talks to your life.

100% FREE. No credit card required. Unsubscribe anytime.

Categories
Questions

Overcoming Imposter Syndrome

Most of us spend huge amounts of time and energy worrying about the areas where our knowledge, skills, and abilities are lacking.

We look at a job ad and our eyes jump straight to the part of the job description that we don’t know how to do.

We’re acutely aware of the various ways we don’t measure up to some ideal — in our personal, social, and professional lives.

As a result, we live in a state of perpetual imposter syndrome. Always feeling like we’re not quite measuring up, because there is some aspect of life that we haven’t yet mastered.

In doing so, we often overlook our own growth. We forget all the things we have learned and the ways we have progressed.

This week’s question is a way for you to break that cycle.

Ask yourself: What used to be hard for me, but now is easy?

Think about your work, as well as your personal life — relationships, social situations, habits, health, etc. and make a list.

What skills have you mastered, obstacles overcome, or confidence have you attained?

Give yourself credit for all that you have already learned and done. 🎉

Then carry that feeling forward — there will always be new things to learn and try for the first time, but you should feel confident, because you’ve mastered new skills before.

Categories
Questions

Begin Again

It’s that time of year…

The middle of February.

Which means that, if you’re like most people, your New Year’s resolutions are fading out of sight in the rearview mirror as you go back to life as usual.

We’ve all experienced this at one time or another.

You start a new habit like going to the gym, eating healthy, or writing 200 words per day. And then, something happens.

You slip. You miss a day, maybe two. You start to lose faith.

And then that little voice in your head starts talking:

“I failed again. I’m never gonna be able to do this.”

Maybe you even give up on the thing you know you should be doing.

Whenever this happens, just ask yourself:

How can I begin again?

That simple question can unlock many new paths, for example…

You can begin again with a simpler habit (try 1 minute of meditation instead of 10).

You can begin again by letting go of self-judgment (forgive yourself and just start writing again).

You can begin again by reminding yourself why you set this goal in the first place. Write a list of why this habit or goal matters and post it on the wall.

You can begin again by taking a lesson from your first attempt and applying it to your next attempt (going forward, I’ll have a friend meet me at the gym so we can keep each other accountable).

Don’t wait for another new year.

Every day you get the opportunity to begin again.

Categories
Questions

Choosing Not to See

Last week we sent a Quality Question inspired by Ryan Holiday’s best-selling book, The Obstacle is the Way.

Ryan takes timeless principles from the ancient Stoic philosophers and makes them accessible and relevant to our modern lives.

In this YouTube video, Ryan shares 12 great questions inspired by Stoicism, including this one:

What am I missing by choosing to worry or be afraid?

We all have limited focus, time, and energy. It’s up to us to choose how we spend it.

If we choose to spend our precious time and energy feeling anxious and worrying, then we must know, it comes at a cost.

In other words, worrying and feeling anxious are not just unpleasant emotions. They are actively destructive.

We can’t control everything that happens to us in life, but we can choose how we spend our energy and where we focus our thoughts.

If there’s something that you’re worried about or that’s making you feel anxious, ask yourself: What am I choosing not to see right now?

Categories
Questions

The Obstacle is the Way

Sometimes the thing that we think is preventing us from achieving our goal is actually the key to our success.

This simple, counter-intuitive principle is the core idea of Ryan Holiday’s best-selling book, The Obstacle is the Way.

Here’s how you can apply that lesson in your own life:

First, think of some area of life where you’re struggling to find a way forward, and ask yourself:
​
​What’s the obstacle in my way, and how can I use it to my advantage?

Here’s one famous example of someone turning a weakness into a gold medal:

As a student, Dick Fosbury struggled to even qualify to compete in the high jump. His obstacle? Fosbury couldn’t quite master complicated “straddle” technique that athletes used to get over the bar.

Fosbury experimented with other, less popular techniques for getting over the bar that required less coordination. He ended up inventing his own technique, which he used to shatter his school’s high jump record, win an NCAA championship, and take home gold 🥇at the 1968 Olympics.

The Fosbury Flop technique is used by most high jumpers today.

​The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.

The Obstacle is the Way
Categories
Questions

How Tim Ferriss Deals with Fear

Last week we sent a Quality Question about using fear to help us identify our most meaningful goals.

But even after learning to “lean in” when we feel fear, sometimes our fears can still sabotage our attempts to achieve our goals.

To combat this we’re going to do something Tim Ferriss calls Fear Setting.

Think about one of your goals that scares you and ask yourself: What am I worried about if I try this?

Write down any fears that come to mind, no matter how big, small, or crazy they might seem. The objective is to get them all out of your head and into writing. Don’t hold back.

Do this now.

For example, say my goal is to save $5,000 towards retirement this year, but I’m afraid that the stock market could crash any day, so I never take action and start saving.

Next, look at the first fear you just wrote and answer the following questions:

How likely is it that this will happen and what would be the impact if it did?

Continuing the example: The worst U.S. stock market crash was on “Black Monday” in 1987. The market went down 23% in a single day. That could happen again. But losing 23% is not the same as the market going to zero, which is probably not going to happen. A worst-case scenario might be that the market suddenly loses 50% of its value. And this is pretty unlikely.

What could you do to prevent this or make it less likely to happen?

I can’t control the stock market, but I could reduce the impact of a crash on me by spreading out my investments (some stocks, some bonds, etc). I could also make sure that I don’t invest money that I need immediately (keep a 3 month cash reserve) so I can absorb the shock if I need to.

How could you repair the situation if it did happen?

If the market did crash and I lost some of my savings, the best thing would probably be to do nothing, just keep saving and investing since it will eventually bounce back. Maybe a crash would even be a good opportunity to invest more.

Start by answering these questions for at least one of the fears on your list now. This activity takes a bit more time, so if you need to, schedule time later to come back and answer these questions for the rest of the fears on your list.

Categories
Questions

Making Friends with Fear 😱

This is the final question in the Quality Questions series on setting and achieving meaningful goals. We saved this question for last because it’s both the most important and the most difficult one for most people to face.

Our process for setting and achieving meaningful goals is as follows:

  1. Get clear on what you really want
  2. Figure out who you have to become to get that
  3. Set clear, achievable goals that help you become that person
  4. Translate those goals into daily habits

That’s it. If you can follow those four steps over and over again, you can accomplish anything. There’s only one thing that can stop you…

Fear.

Ask yourself: What goal or habit are you most afraid of pursuing?

Perhaps it’s one of the three you already wrote. Or maybe it’s one you thought of, but were too afraid to even write down.

If you hide from your fear, you’ll end up running around in circles accomplishing goals that seem nice on the surface, but don’t actually get you closer to what you really want.

When it comes to goals, our fears are like a compass, pointing to what really matters to us. Once you figure out which goal or habit scares you the most, make that your top priority!

If your goal is to become a great public speaker, but the idea of a going live on social media terrifies you, then lean into that fear! It’s because this is something important to you that you feel fear at the potential failure.

Pick your top goal based on fear and train yourself to lean in. This is the true path to mastery and becoming the best version of yourself.

Categories
Questions

From Goals to Reality 🔑

Over the past four weeks, we’ve spent time figuring out what we don’t want, which helped us get clear on what we do want.

Then we identified the kind of person we need to become to get what we want, and set some goals to help us become that kind of person.

You should now have three clear, achievable goals that you are going to accomplish in the next three months (if you haven’t set those yet, you can do it now — we’ve linked to the previous questions above).

The next step is to ask yourself: What daily habits do I need to adopt to accomplish my goals? Your habits are the key for turning your vision into reality. Without supportive habits, even the most exciting goals are just hopeful fantasies.

Here’s an example of how a big vision can translate into a daily habit:

What do I want? To be invited to speak at important conferences and be seen as a thought leader in my field.

Who I need to become? A great communicator, comfortable speaking in front of a large audience, and able to explain big ideas in a short timeslot.

Three month goal? Give a 15-minute TED Talk-style presentation in public.

What habit do I need to adopt? Go live on social media for a minute or two everyday for a month to get used to speaking in public.

Choose and commit to a daily habit for each of the goals you set.

Categories
Questions

How to Become the New and Improved You 🆕

We began the new year by asking ourselves: Who do I have to become to get what I want?

We answered this question by writing a description of that person, including their behaviors, habits, and thought patterns.

Take a few minutes every day review this description. Do this now, and make it a habit.

If you didn’t finish writing a description of the person you want to become, or if you want to make any revisions, now is a great time to do that.

Once you have a clear vision of who you want to become, the next step is to figure out how to make it happen. That’s what we’re going to do now.

Setting arbitrary goals just to hit them is satisfying, but not lasting.
​
The best goals are well defined not in the material possessions you get once you achieve them, but intentionally set to help you form the habits, thoughts, relationships, and lifestyle that turn you into the person you want to be.

Your goals effectively stretch you to become someone you aren’t today. If you were the person who could get the things you wanted and have the life you dreamed of, you’d have them already.

Dr. Anthony Gustin

​
Our goals are not the ends, but rather the means. So, ask yourself:

What goals will help me to become the person I want to become?

Start by reviewing the description of the person you want to become and notice if there are any recurring themes that stand out.

Choose up to three themes to focus on for now. Then for each theme, set a goal for the next few months.

Choose goals that are achievable, but that will also force you to stretch beyond your current comfort level and abilities. Make sure you include both a deadline and specific success criteria for each goal.

For example:

If the person you want to become is a great communicator who gets invited to speak at important conferences and events, then one of your goals could be to give a 15 minute talk in public (or live on YouTube) by the end of next month.

Categories
Questions

Who Do You Need to Become? 🦋

Instead of starting the year with the usual vague goals and uninspiring resolutions, we’re doing something powerful and different…

Over the past few weeks, we’ve been preparing by asking ourselves:

What do I definitely not want? What would be the opposite of that?

These questions help us gain clarity about what we want in life. After all, the ultimate goal isn’t to achieve a one-off accomplishment and call it quits. The ultimate goal is to create a life that you love living.

Now, building on your answers to the previous questions, ask yourself: Who do I have to become to get what I want?

For example, let’s say you wrote that you “don’t want to spend weekends at home alone anymore.”

And then you defined the opposite of that as, “I want to have an active social life with lots of friends and fun events.”

What kind of person would live that life?

Think about the behaviors of that person, their habits, and thought patterns. How would you describe them?

Perhaps they are outgoing and talkative. Full of energy. They always have a kind word for everyone, and they linger an extra minute or two to chat with the barista instead of hurrying off in silence.

Maybe they make a special point of remembering people’s names, and go out of their way to introduce people they know to each other. They probably host lots of parties, and make sure that everyone is having a good time.

Answer the question above for each of the opposites you wrote last week. Then, compile the answers into concise a description of one person.

Become this person in 2022. That’s your true new year’s resolution!