Ways I Push Myself Ahead

When I want to push myself ahead here are some tricks I use.See how they work for you.Do you have some other good ones?

1.When I’m scared of failure I remind myself that even if I fail this time,it wouldn’t be the first time I have failed and that I have survived failures before to come out ahead.I remind myself that the the skills I picked up in failed ventures have helped form the basis of future successes.This has the knack of calming me a bit.

2.When I find myself fixating on worst-case scenarios,I remind myself that I am running the risk of substituting imagination for thinking, speculation for risk analysis and fear for reason.Worst-case scenarios are vivid, but are almost always much less probable. Fixating on worst-case scenarios simply results in plain old bad decision making.

3.When I’m having an analysis-paralysis,I remind myself that life is short and there are no guarantees that the opportunities and chances I have before me today will still be around tomorrow. If I wait and hesitate beyond the point of prudent planning and deliberate decision making, I risk losing  momentum and there are good chances I will never start.Link .I also tell myself that hesitating allows time for totally new obstacles to develop that didn’t even exist when I first came up with the idea .

4.When starting something new seems like rocking the boat unnecessarily,I try imagining my ‘default future’  i.e.an exaggerated version of how affairs will be in 5, 10 or 50 years if I don’t act to make a change.This makes the opportunity costs and risks of inaction more vivid to envision and gets me started on doing the things I need to.

5.When the going gets tough on a new project and I feel like quitting I remind myself that when we want to acquire a new skill set, we must first slog away, working hard and practicing deliberately to get to 10% mastery before we hit an exhilarating phase of hyper growth  in which we improve and learn new things very quickly before hitting a plateau at around 90% mastery.So if I allow fear to stall me or obstacles to stop me during the hard, slow 10% initial phase, I increase the chances that I’ll never get to the wondrous, feel-good hyper growth phase.

6.If I feel myself going stale or getting stuck in a rut,I make it a point to try out at least one new thing a day.Even if it is something as small as turn the TV to a channel I don’t always watch or googling up something I known nothing about.

7.I find it useful to set a series of small goals leading to the finish line.Each milestone achieved gives me a rush and keeps me going.