Monday Motivation

New habits can be tough, you will always experience resistance or will simply forget about it. One thing you can do is make sure you have reminders that will help you increase the probability of doing the thing every day. It can be as simple as an alarm on your phone or a post it note on your bathroom mirror.

For example if you always forget to floss, keep the floss right next to your toothbrush so that whenever you go brush your teeth you will have a physical reminder of what you want to do.

Your brain is great at thinking and solving problems, but it’s terrible at remembering things, so we would benefit from helping our brains out whenever we can.

“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”
— Seneca

Photo by Joakim Honkasalo on Unsplash

Scheduling your time can be very difficult. At work and at home you’re always distracted by all the urgent things that you need to do and it’s very hard to make time for what’s important to you. One thing you can do is to schedule blocks of time for your important projects, and make it a practice that you can’t be interrupted during these times. If you progress even a little bit every day, you will achieve a lot in the long run and will feel better because you’re spenmding time on what’s important, not just fighting fires all the time.

“Life, if well lived, is long enough.”
— Seneca

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It can be really hard to get rid of bad habits. By definition a habit is something that you do “automatically” and you might feel like you don’t have control over it. However, there are a couple of tips that can help you revert them.

First, you can think of something that will help you realize when you’re falling into the habit, for example if you bite your nails you can use products that will make them taste bitter. Not only will you be deterred from biting them, you will realize when you’re doing it and can consciously decide not to do it.

Additionally you can make sure that you have a way to prevent the habit handy for when it happens, for example you can keep nail clippers on your desk so that when you get the urge to bite them you can trim them instead.

Decide which habit you want to revert, find a way to realize when you’re doing it and make it easy to remove the temptation.

“As long as you live, keep learning how to live.”
— Seneca

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Sometimes a very simple action can brighten our day. Whenever I go out on my bike I make it a point to say “good morning” to joggers, hikers and other bikers I pass or cross. It seems silly but this small gesture of humanity brightens my day. I like to think it brightens their day too and hopefully triggers a chain reaction of kindness.

Small gestures of kindness can have a large effect that you don’t even know about.

“Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for a kindness.”
— Seneca

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Nowadays most apps want to send you notifications, even individual websites want to do this too. Your attention is on high demand because it is worth money to advertisers.

In order to protect your precious time and attention, ask yourself the following questions:

– Do I need to know about this immediately?
– Do I need to know about this at all?

You will find that most of the time you absolutely do not need the instant notifications to distract you. Explore the settings on your device and set it up so that you only get what you do need. Calls and messages from family are fine, notifications about social media posts or group chats can most likely wait until you check. Most other notifications you probably don’t need to see them at all.

Be mindful of every notification you receive from now on, resist FOMO and disable them if you don’t actually need them. Protect your time and attention.

“No man is free who is not master of himself.”
 — Epictetus

Photo by Febe Vanermen on Unsplash

It is very common for people to get overwhelmed when trying to introduce new habits in their life. It is also very common to lose existing habits because of unforeseen temporary circumstances. Many times the reason is that people think that in order to “make it count” they have to do unreasonable amounts of the activity. However, when it comes to habits what’s important more than anything is consistency.

Show up every day, it doesn’t really matter how much you do, if you show up every day you will see progress and it will get easier. Depending on which habit you want to introduce, figure out a reasonable minimum and commit to do it only that. It really can be a minimum, for example if you want to have a reading habit, commit to reading one page every day. Most of the time you will read more, but when life gets in the way, one page will be enough and you will feel good for following through on your commitment.

“Settle on the type of person you want to be and stick to it, whether alone or in company.”
— Marcus Aurelius

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These days we are bombarded by distractions, it’s no wonder we are unable to focus.

It has been thoroughly debunked that “multitasking” is something that we can do effectively, so what we need to do in order to achieve our goals is to focus and do one thing at a time. There are several things we can try to help us be able to keep our focus, for example:

• Disable or snooze notifications. If at all possible the best way to take back control of your attention is to disable most notifications. Allowing calls from your immediate family in case of emergency and not much more is an ideal way to maximize your focus
• Keep your workspace organized. Having a cluttered desk distracts us and uses up cognitive energy, having a cluttered computer does the same. Spend some time to tidy it up and see how the order helps concentration.
• Pay attention to only one thing at a time. Many of us use multiple screens or widescreen monitors where you can place windows side by side, this is very useful as long as the windows that you have side by side are related to your current task. Try not to have IM, email or any other distracting apps visible at the same time as you’re working.
• Make sure your working time is free from physical interruptions. If you don’t live by yourself, make sure that your family or housemates know when they shouldn’t interrupt you, and make sure you return the favor.
• Be mindful of your own unique distractions, and try some experiments to see what works and helps you maintain focus for longer.

“Life is long, if you know how to use it.”
— Seneca

Photo by Febe Vanermen on Unsplash

This will be a little more personal than usual, but I think it’s relevant to the topic. Many of us have been raised to believe that we must be strong at all times, that asking for help is weakness, that feeling overwhelmed is a personal failure, that feeling anything (other than anger) is a flaw.

The push towards ruthless individualism in some cultures has lead us to this and it can make many people simply miserable. In my case during dark times I would regularly go to bed thinking that it would be nice to not wake up again. I am very aware and very grateful of all the privileges I have, I am by no means someone who is in a bad situation at life, and I still have gone (and will go) through dark times mentally. It happens to all of us and it’s ok to reach out for help.

In my case what helped me out of the dark times was getting into Stoic philosophy to learn to “domesticate” my feelings, focus on what I can control and try to live with justice, wisdom, courage and temperance. For you it might be something else, maybe your religion, a philosophy, a mental health professional or support from friends and family.

Even if you have nobody that you feel comfortable reaching out and can’t afford a professional, there are resources for you. Maybe something like Buddhism or Stoicism will work for you, or maybe some of the new online mental health services like BetterHelp can be affordable for you. Maybe there is a government provided or pro-bono resource that you can access. It is ok, we should be a community and we should help each other, it’s ok to reach out.

Please reach out.

“You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”
— Marcus Aurelius

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It is normal, even common, to feel stuck, uninspired or unable to figure out what to do next. What makes this more frustrating is that sometimes the more we focus on finding a solution, the harder it gets to figure it out.

One technique that helps get unstuck is to do freeform writing sessions. You write down a question for yourself, set a timer then start writing about it. At first you will write about the question, but don’t force yourself to focus, just keep going, keep writing. Even if it feels like it’s gibberish, keep going. If you blank out and don’t know what else to write, repeat the last work until you can continue.

Once the timer ends, review what you wrote and see if there’s anything that helps you move forward. If there isn’t, don’t worry about it, try again later or tomorrow. In the meantime, your subconscious brain will continue working on the question and you may find that next time you get some insight that will push you in the right direction.

“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”
— Seneca

Photo by Untung Bekti Nugroho on Unsplash

It is very common for people to come home from work (or more recently, log out from work) feeling absolutely drained and exhausted. The cause of this might vary, but one of the common causes of exhaustion is not taking proper breaks during the day.

Additionally, even if we take breaks from work, they are not really restful because we use them to scroll through social media or catch up with our group chats. Your brain doesn’t care if this information processing is not really work, it feels like work to it.

This week, try taking breaks without your phone. Go for a walk outside, do a meditation session, do breathing exercises or read something enjoyable. It is very likely that these better breaks will help you recharge and finish the workday with some energy still in your tank to enjoy the rest of the day.

“No person is free who is not master of himself.”
— Epictetus

Photo by Wolfgang Hasselmann on Unsplash