When it comes to doing something new, you're creating new connections in your brain. But the thing is, it's kind of like walking to the mailbox with six feet of snow between your front door and the mailbox that is 30 ft away. So when you make that first trip and back, it's going to be difficult because the path hasn’t been made yet. Then it's going to snow a little the next day but the trip is going to be easier than the first day. The faster you take more trips to the mailbox and back, the faster the path will be clear.

When we try new things, it’s going to be difficult because we haven’t created the clear path yet. So every time you take action, you are going to connect new wires in your brain and the path is going to become more efficient for your brain to do it. So keep taking action and eventually it will feel effortless to do. 

Journal Prompts

1. What is something that needs to feel more effortless in doing? What actions can you take to help you turn those things into something that is easy to do?
2. How can you ensure that you stick to your thing until it becomes effortless?

There is nothing worse than spending tons of time and money on something and then you find out that it was all for nothing. When you're working on something new and you have a timeline, most of the time, it's just best to come out with something that just barely works. Then when you start getting feedback, then that is when you can start removing or adding stuff that people actually want. If you look at the first Iphone, it didn't even have a cut and paste option, but it was sent out anyways. 

When you're giving a presentation, you can give too much information on a subject and it will cause people to get lost. So you need to find the balance between too much and too little. Time is something we shouldn't waste, so make sure you do the minimal viable product to get the thing out and take it from there. 

Journal Prompts

1. Are you putting too much energy into your projects? How do you know what will be the right balance?
2. How can you use feedback to help you modify your projects?

One of the keys to overcoming any obstacle in your life is to look at the obstacle as objective as possible. Try to take out the emotion where you start getting all angry or you panic and can't think. When you do this, then you're adding more challenges to the situation and if you make a mountain out of a molehill, what was an easy hike, now turns into a hike that you might not be able to do. 

To prevent this, take the fly on the wall approach. Where you're looking at your body acting in the moment from the perspective of a fly. This can help you realize if you’re acting irrational in the situation because you’re able to view the situation from more angles. If you realize that your poor attitude is causing the situation to get worse, then you’re able to get past the obstacle faster.

Making things worse than necessary is not a good strategy to live a good life, so don’t do it.

Journal Prompts

1. How can you use the fly on the wall approach to see if you’re acting poorly in a situation?
2. How can you maintain the right mindset so you don’t make things more difficult than necessary?

A lot of things can go wrong if you misunderstand someone. It makes for a great comedy but it's not fun in real life most of the time. It can cost you a lot of money or reputation if there is miscommunication. A NASA spaceship exploded in the air because one group did their measurements in inches while the other group did their measurements using the metric system. 

To prevent these types of miscommunications, we want to avoid using vague words and do check-in to make sure that things are going in the right direction. No one can read our minds and we can't read the minds of others, so we want to make sure we're not acting so. A miscommunication is an avoidable mistake but it requires us to be aware that a miscommunication can happen. If we are aware that it is a possibility, then we can ask the questions to make sure everything is clear. 

Journal Prompts

1. How can a misunderstanding affect your life for the worse?
2. What questions can you ask so that there are no misunderstandings in your relationships?

It's okay to be wrong since no one is perfect. The wrong thing to do is be wrong and then continue to be wrong after you realize that you're wrong. To be successful in life you have to be willing to be wrong because that's how you can discover new things in life. Being wrong can expose you to new outcomes in life and help show you the right path that you should be on. It isn’t even rational to strive to be perfect because to be perfect is to be inhuman.

If you're wrong, you're wrong, and that's okay. Just admit to yourself that you made a mistake and correct your actions. This will make you a good person, and in life we should strive to be good people.

Journal Prompts

1. What is the worst thing about being wrong? Is this the most fatal thing you can do?
2. How can you be more okay with being wrong?

You never know when you're going to need to reach out to someone for some help. If you were an asshole to someone and then a couple days or weeks later, you reach out to them and ask for help, they're probably not going to help you. You can leave someone on cordial terms but if you're hostile about it then don't expect to be able to go back to that person. 

If someone was a jerk to you, you probably wouldn’t want to help them out in the future either.. People often don't change who they are and if they are a bridge burner, then they are most likely to do it again in the future. Be careful how you interact with other people because you don't know when you will be needing something from them in the future. You can raise the bridge if someone is not acting right, but give the other person an opportunity to lower it.

Journal Prompts

1. What would burning a bridge actually do for your life?
2. How can you ensure that you don’t burn bridges in your life?

When you look at things that you're not doing, what is holding you back from doing it? Do you think your reputation is going to take a hit because you will be seen as a failure or that things will go extremely wrong like bankruptcy? Even if you went through all these things, these are not fatal outcomes that you can’t come back from. Going from eating steak dinners to beans and rice is still better for a lot of people on this planet and can be temporary if you take the right steps to get your life back on track.

There is not much you can lose that won't make a difference in your life. You can live off of ramen noodles and sleep on an air mattress while you work on your goals. Going through these experiences can give you a perspective on life that will make a harder worker and one that shows more empathy. You only got one shot for living on this planet, so might as well take some chances with your life.

Journal Prompts

1. Are you playing it too safe with your life because you’re afraid of losing something? Is this something that you should be really afraid of losing?
2. How can you be more comfortable with losing things in your life?

Every time you hear a negative thing or say something negative, you need to say or do ten positive things. There is a lot of negativity out there in the world and that's why we need motivation in our lives to help us out. Listening to motivational YouTube videos and keeping a gratitude journal can give you the motivation you need for your day. Having that playlist can help jumpstart your day and help you focus on the right things. 

Affirmations (positive self-talk) can also help keep your spirits high. If you tell yourself something like “I got this” and “I’m going to give it one more try” after each failed attempt, this can make the next attempt easier. The world is a tough place to live and we need to ensure that we have the right type of energy to stay afloat. So go find your motivation and keep making progress on your goals.

Journal Prompts

1. How would you rate your motivation levels right now? Is this enough to keep you going or do you need to make a change?
2. How can you motivate yourself when times get tough?

A bad decision is usually better than making no decision at all. When you make a bad decision, you can learn what not to do and how to improve next time. When you don't make a decision, then you don't get that opportunity. We should still strive to avoid making bad decisions but sometimes you have to move forward with a decision rather than just sitting on your hands and not doing nothing because that can lead to disastrous results down the road. With France, Great Britain, and the US, they just sat on their hands while Adolf Hitler grew his empire, this turned out really bad for the world. It's hard to say what would've happened if they intervened earlier, but the world could have spared countless lives.

When it comes to your life, sometimes you just have to make a decision to quit your job to focus on something else, or finally quit that bad relationship that you've been holding off on for a couple of months. There is going to be confusion for a little bit but it will force you to think about your next move and how to improve your life. The more decisions you can make to change, the more your life can change. Just make sure you quit the bad decisions as fast as possible and focus on the decisions that are making your life better. 

Journal Prompts

1. How can you be more decisive in your decisions?
2. Are you making enough decisions to get or maintain your good life?

Society has pushed many people into a box that says they can't do something unless they received formal training. That's why you can't become a coach unless you get the right licenses or can’t give certain presentations until you wait your turn in line. 

For many things in life, you can skip the line if you do the right things. You don’t need someone to give you permission to do something, you just need to give yourself the permission. You might fail at doing the thing you want to do, but you can always try again until you reach your goal.

This is how the Wright brothers did it. They wanted to fly a plane and they accomplished their goal by focusing on one problem until they solved it before heading off to the next issue. Spending four years going to school to learn how to work is a lot of time and the learning can be done in your spare time as you research your answers. You can do a lot of your stuff on your own and speed up the learning process if you take responsibility for the outcome. Some things you do need to have the right certifications for but for a lot of things there are plenty of ways to fly with having to get a pilots licence. 

Journal Prompts

1. How can you skip the line for your goals?
2. How would saving that time help you with other parts of your life?