Category: K.E.E.N. skills

How to Overcome the Dilemma of Getting Stuff Done and still Be Kind to Oneself

The post by Leo Babauta ‘How to Be Kind to Yourself & Still Get Stuff Done‘ resonates much with me, because it is a dilemma I am struggling with on a daily basis. I generally consider that effort is required to get things done, and tend not to be too kin don myself as a result of my drive.

“This is the fear, when people start being kind to themselves — that they’ll be too soft, they won’t get stuff done, they’ll let themselves off the hook too easily, they’ll just lie around doing nothing.”

Leo Babauta reminds us why kindness to self is so important. He often finds “that almost all of our barriers are self-imposed — we are harsh on ourselves, and it makes everything much more difficult“. Having compassion for oneself, and concentrating on doing things that are good for oneself, is the key to overcoming this dilemma.

I like this idea that if one is too hard on oneself, maybe it is also because what we are trying to do may be a bit harmful.

I’ll try to be a bit kinder to myself in the future, while still trying to get stuff done. It’s a good way to focus on what’s good for me too.

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How Scientific Truths Need a Generation of Researchers to Pass Away to Be Overturned

Following on our previous post ‘How Facts and Truths Have a (Short) Half-Life‘ and some insights from the book ‘The Half-Life of Facts: Why Everything We Know Has an Expiration Date‘ by Samuel Arbesman, one interesting aspect is to observe how much a usual half-life for scientific ‘truth’. It turns out often to be one generation, or approximately 50 years.

The reason is simple: it takes the mandarins and opinion- and career-making professors to disappear naturally for new ideas to take ground.

“Two Australian surgeons found that half of the facts in that field also become false every forty – five years . As the French scientists noted , all of these results verify the first half of a well – known medical aphorism by John Hughlings Jackson , a British neurologist in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries : “ It takes 50 years to get a wrong idea out of medicine , and 100 years a right one into medicine . ” This means that despite the ever – expanding growth of scientific knowledge , the publication of new articles , refutations of existing theories , the bifurcations of new fields into multiple subfields , and the messy processes of grant – writing and – funding in academia , there are measurable ways in which facts are overturned and our knowledge is ever renewed . I’m not simply extrapolating from this half – life of medicine to argue that all of science is like this . Other studies have been performed about the half – lives of different types of scientific knowledge as well“

So if you are in a field where you uncover a new ‘truth’ but this cannot be heard by whoever is the old guy in charge of your career, either you conform, or you have to go outside the institution and use it for yourself.

With a quicker developing world, this limit of 50 years half-life for scientific truth may become quite a problem! Maybe some age limit on researchers may be a good idea?

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How We Should Not Skimp Little Luxuries

This post ‘Little Luxuries‘ by Steve Pavlina has resonated with me. His point is that we should not skimp on little luxuries because the emotional cost of doing to is much greater than the benefit of not spending for it – and the risk to remain in a scarcity mindset.

Fancy coffee: a luxury?

“If you took all the money you spend on luxury lattes each year and saved it instead, you’d have a little bit more money but a less luxurious life. But you’d also risk getting more entrenched in a scarcity mindset because scaling back your lifestyle just to save a little extra money is mostly a waste of thought.”

He warns us: “Self-discipline is a limited resource. Save it for the big stuff that matters. Don’t squander it on fussing over how you handle minor expenses.”

The point he makes about the fact that this behavior of avoiding little luxuries actually stems from a scarcity mindset is quite enlightening. And the solution is rather to take the opposite view, using those little luxuries of money and time to expand one’s universe: “Instead of worrying about small expenses, think about making interesting contributions to people’s lives. Explore different ways to creatively express yourself. Take some interesting risks.” It is an investment to get out of the scarcity mindset.

So, grant yourself little luxuries as an exercise to get rid of the scarcity mindset – and leverage on it to expand your horizons!

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How We Should Start Before We Are Ready

Have a glimpse at this clever post by Austin Kleon ‘Start before you think you’re ready‘. Of course that post is about writing but that can apply to any creative field.

He starts by a quote from Stephen Arrigan: “I think that when it comes to writing books, you have to start before you are ready, because you will always feel like you are never ready. I find that as you write the book, the road ahead becomes clearer; before that, the road ahead is just a distraction“.

The point Austin Kleon makes is that it is often more comfortable and exciting doing research rather than writing. But then when writing the road becomes clearer as to what really needs to be researched, so we should not wait too much before starting to write.

I find that this applies to any creative field, including entrepreneurship. In creative fields, some research is good, too much research is procrastination because we don’t know what to look for before we start. Interesting lesson!

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How We Need to Overcome the Fear of Unfulfillment of our Lives

In this excellent short post ‘Scared of success?’ the Gapingvoid culture design group addressed the link between fear and achievement. We are fearful to start something new. And when we don’t then we wonder why, and it creates even more fear: to have forego our lives doing nothing worthwhile.

The straightforward issue is that “Out of fear may come comfort, but also out of fear often comes a sense of unfulfillment. You spend your whole life being scared, then wonder why you haven’t created anything“

And I find the next reverse issue even more interesting: “more poignantly, you spend whole life not creating anything, and then you wonder why you’re so scared all the time“

The fear of unfulfillment, of not having lived at the expected level, of not having impressed on the world our talents, whatever they are, may be one of the most fundamental human fears. Let’s not just face it passively, let’s go explore new things and be creative!

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How We Need to Overcome Our Societies’ Over-Protection Tendency

Following on our previous post ‘How Over-Protection of University Students Is Spreading and May Be Due to a Generational Issue‘ I feel the need to expand on the issue of over-protection in our societies and the need to be exposed from time to time to situations that hurt. How could we all have learnt to ride a bicycle without falling from time to time? How could our immune system grow and be effective without getting exposed regularly to microbes?

It all comes down to the fact that we are living organisms with the ability to repair and evolve. And that our evolution is the result of our will and experience.

The situation would be of course different with an object: when it is damaged or broken it can’t repair itself (yet at least). But for living organisms, what does not kill us makes us progress and evolve.

And avoiding confrontation with potentially disturbing situations diminishes greatly our adaptability and versatility. Adaptability is the prime advantage in natural evolution for humans. Therefore, avoiding exposure to potentially disturbing ideas and situations puts us at disadvantage in the long term.

I fear that is what may happen to the most developed countries. Take for example a Singaporean that has lived all its life in an exceptionally safe country: he or she will be frightened and will have difficulty to adapt to cities like Paris, New York or Houston which are reasonably safe cities, where you need however to be a bit vigilant (that’s an example I have been witness to!). Over-protection makes it difficult to adapt and there is a risk that people will tend to stay in their comfortable environment – until it gets wished away by some greater external forces.

Making sure we are exposed from time to time to tough situations, different opinions and ideas is healthy. And if it does not happen we need to force ourselves. Simple tip: travel more, and expose yourself to unfamiliar environments and cultures!

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How to Become More Creative in our Professional Life

Valeria Maltoni in her blog ‘How can we Become More Creative at Work?‘ provides useful hints about how to improve creativity in situations which are supposedly quite constrained.

“Judgement is one of the biggest barriers to creativity while curiosity stokes the flames of imagination“, and the issue is clearly to be able to suspend judgment for a while to let creative ideas flourish. In addition being inspired by outsiders coming with a fresh viewpoint, and letting our own creativity express itself, appear to be essential aspects.

From my experience, the most important aspect I believe, is how the requirement for productivity removes the possibility to take time to look laterally. And it is true that I find myself sometimes much too busy, or too focused on achieving some intermediate milestone, to notice things that could be creative opportunities. Not even speaking of dreaming. I find that with smartphones and screens I have lost considerably my day-dreaming time.

Increasing creativity at work is a major issue in a world that is changing more and more frequently. This issue is not sufficiently addressed. Developing a framework to increase joint creativity is essential. What about taking more time to be creative at work?

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How to Analyze Drama Using the Karpman Triangle

I discovered the concept of the Karpman Triangle as a social model of human interaction – and a useful way to decrypt movie scenarios! This social model of human interaction (formalized in the 1960s) always involves a Victim, a Persecutor and a Rescuer.

Of course, in the dynamics of social interaction, roles can evolve and change. However the basics remain and it gives a useful analysis tool at least for movie and theater scenarios.

In real life it does apply too and gives an interesting model that can be used for individuals to realize their current posture and how they could switch. “The motivations for each participant and the reason the situation endures is that each gets their unspoken (and frequently unconscious) psychological wishes/needs met in a manner they feel justified, without having to acknowledge the broader dysfunction or harm done in the situation as a whole” (Wikipedia). Therefore, elevating the state of consciousness of the situation can help de-dramatize the situation.

If you are facing a drama, examine whether the Karpman triangle could apply. It is quite a fascinating analysis model for such interactions!

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How Modern Identification Technology Proves How Unique We Are

Every other week another technology for personal identification crops up. On the latest ones is based on heartbeat, as explained in this MIT Technology review article ‘The Pentagon has a laser that can identify people from a distance—by their heartbeat‘.

While facial recognition is becoming mainstream and is used in airports and increasingly in the public space, and fingerprints are used almost daily, the stream of unique identification methods continues. Let’s just hope the individual uniqueness is effectively proven and that those methods get certified!

However the point I want to make is that they all show how unique we can be: fingerprints, face, eyes and pupila, DNA, heartbeat… So many aspects that create a unique signature and make us different from other billion individuals…

Soon medicine will also start to become individual based, depending on our genetic variants.

Did you realize how unique you are? And that we all should make better use of this uniqueness instead of trying to get standardized and categorized as cogs of the economy?

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How Important It Is to Get Better Clients

In this post ‘Freelancing is a brave act‘, Seth Godin reminds us that the key as a freelancer is not necessarily to work more, but to get better clients. And I find this does apply to any service activity, at least for small companies.

“Better clients demand more, pay more and talk about your work. Better clients make it easier for you to level up, and better clients challenge you to dig deeper and do what you’re capable of.” In short, it may not be more comfortable working for better clients, but it is definitely more challenging and at the end more rewarding.

Working for better clients creates the seed for becoming masters of our work.

As a freelancer, or as a consultant, “You don’t do better by working more hours. You can’t work more hours. You do better by finding better clients.”

How good are our clients? What about dropping the worse ones and look for better ones?

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How to Subtly Shift One’s Mind to Overcome Procrastination

Leo Babauta in his post ‘Mindfully Shifting Your Approach to a Task Can Shift Everything‘ reminds us that to tackle a task that is not easy or nice, and to overcome procrastination, all it takes is a subtle mindset shift.

“So you either run to distraction and procrastinate, or you do it but really don’t enjoy doing it. Neither of these is helpful. So what can we do instead of procrastinating or disliking the task? We can bring some subtle, mindful, powerful shifts to the task. And in fact, we can do this to any activity.”

Many of the approaches then described by Leo Babauta involve more self-consciousness of our feelings and changing our view on this unpleasant task by living more in an appreciative manner, closer to the present. In summary, it requests more presence and self-consciousness about the importance of the task.

In general it is true that it is often effective to change slightly one’s mindset regarding some event or some task to find that it is finally easier to perform than one would expect.

Next time you’re faced with procrastination, try to change slightly your mindset and view about the difficult task you can’t seem to be able to perform!

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How We Need to Know How to Enforce Replenishment Periods

As Leo Babuta reminds us in his post ‘Antidotes to Overwork‘, we need to learnt to “Do Less By Enforcing Replenishment Time“.

“Enforcing time for rest and replenishment doesn’t come naturally to most of us, especially in our society. In our world, it’s always a matter of doing more and more. It’s always connected, always cram in more, always respond. All the time.”

“How often do you take an hour or two just to go for a walk and not read or listen to anything useful? To find silence and time to contemplate? To find space for yourself, to find room to breathe? We don’t value that, but it’s so important. You can’t function at your best without it.”

Leo Babuta continues by suggesting some approaches and techniques to really find the time to replenish. What I find interesting is the recognition for the need to have some balance between very active moments and replenishment moments. Replenishment is not just relaxation it is also being open to new ideas, people, locations and thus taking the time to grow.

When are you taking the time to grow?

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