Читать книгу You. Step-by-step guide to self understanding, managing and developing - Slava Makovich - Страница 4

Meanings management

There are more than 150 billion stars in our Galaxy (the Milky Way), and over 100 billion galaxies in the visible part of the Universe.

Compared with such a scale, any of our achievements or problems are imperceptible, any people, even the greatest, are less significant for the world than some particularly passionate ant for humanity as a whole, and any meaning is important primarily from the point of view of the concrete human, experiencing it.

But the importance of having this meaning for each individual is HUGE. Finding or adding it allows you to live a conscious, happy and productive life, although it is not the only sufficient condition for its realization.

The easiest way is to apply efforts to those areas to which there is indifference and in which there is a competitive advantage. Engage in the implementation of what inspires and where there is an increased chance of great success. When that happens, the feeling of importance will not be left behind.

Here are some useful questions for honest conversation with yourself:

– What are you interested in? What are you willing to do even for free? What do you care about? If you could study anywhere and anything for the next year, what would it be?

– What are your outstanding abilities? What questions do you get asked most often? What do you do better or easier than others? What is your superpower?

– What are your ambitions? In which area would you like to be among the best? Which activities give you energy? What achievements are you proud of?

– What is important to you? What do you hate in the world around you and what do you really want to change in it? What are your goals outside of life? Let’s say you achieved the goal, what do you get out of that?

– Who are you? What do you believe in? What are you grateful for? What would you like to be thanked for?

Yes, the choice of what to do is not always possible, but we always have a choice of how to treat it. We can consciously add meaning to even the most potentially meaningless things, especially if we find therein a chance for creativity.

With pleasure and desire, do what you have to do, and treat everything as a game with meaning. Find value for the future and reasons to play, observe, look at different angles, improve the process – do anything, but do not allow a lack of meaning. You have only one life, and you have the power to live it with a sense of meaning.

Importance Management

First you control the importance, then the importance controls you.

Each of us have the mental remote control of our perceived importance, you can use it to increase or decrease the perceived importance of what happened in the past, can happen in the future and is happening right.

How does it work?

– If you feel that you have a lack of motivation for something really important, raise the toggle switch on the remote control and find confirmation of this importance.

– If you are overwhelmed by some of the disturbing feelings. Inhale calmly, hold the air and exhale gently in front of you with relief, remember the number of stars in the universe, mentally return to where you are now, and slowly lower the toggle switch. You will succeed if you go in the right direction, you have everything you need for this. The same should be done with anxiety, worries and insecurities.

Why it is important?

An excessive or insufficient sense of importance greatly hinders the achievement of goals and beats our emotional state. For example, if you feel that some goal is painfully important to you, reduce this importance, as this will interfere with its achievement. In addition to the mental remote, you can use the development of alternative acceptable scenarios and shifting the point of view of the situation.

Check back 2—4 times a day your current level of perceived importance on the issues that concern you and move the toggle switch to the optimum position.

Goals Management

You are the main tool for setting and achieving your goals.

The idea of the future, formulated in the form of a goal (“image of the result”), is a means of achieving meaning in the present. Big goals give energy, followers and observers. And, what is most interesting, they require approximately the same efforts as the achievement of less ambitious goals. Don’t be afraid to raise the bar. Life is one, do not exchange it for uninteresting trifles.

Task selection is also a task. Important task. The ability to abandon the less significant tasks, focus on the priority ones and perform them well is the basis of any achievement. Moreover, the meaning of setting priorities is not only in achieving certain goals, but also in optimizing your efforts. You cannot be the world’s best boxer, philosopher, builder and pianist at the same time. The rejection of one makes the other possible.

1) Make a list of things without which you will not be able to consider your life as a successful one. Without growing up a child? Without visiting 50 countries? Without publishing your book? Without launching your successful business?…

Keep this in mind when making decisions about your life – the most valuable and the only thing that you really have.

2) Double-check each item: “Let’s say you have reached it, what will get out of that?”. A good final option is the one when you can no longer explain: “You just want and it just ignites your inner fire.”

3) Leave 3—5 most important points that evoke an inner feeling of success and resonate with the questions: “Who, if not me?”, “When, if not now?”. Don’t try to save all the possibilities. Almost everything is possible, but not all at once. Choose areas that are worthy of your time and efforts.

4) Do not look for too fast routes, the achievement needs to mature and it may take a certain time.

5) Take a couple of steps towards your goal in order to double-check its correctness by looking at the feedback from yourself and from life.

And then translate your goals into “focus zones” with targets, metrics, and daily habits. Dream about the result, but focus on creating “the conditions of inevitability of its achievement”.

For example, what metrics can be taken for the “weight” concentration zone?

– Current weight? Yes, for the appearance of the so-called “observer effect” and for additional motivation from approaching the image of the result, but not as metrics, since the weight will change due to different factors.

– Going to the gym? No, because you can cheat, and the gym is just one of the possible means to work out.

– A certain amount of certain exercises combined with a certain number of calories eaten? Yes! You need to focus not on a specific figure on the scales (this is an inspiring image of the result), but on providing a certain amount of full-fledged training, and then gradually convert this metric into a habit with protection of the allocated time and respect to your decisions.