Don't Forget To Be Awesome

I am awesome.

Well, sometimes. And of late, I guess I'd forgotten to be awesome. And as I've been realizing, the key is to let the awesome version of me control the idiots, and thus increase the percentage of time I spend being awesome!

On a related note, I found this blog. This guy Joel Runyon is awesome. Whatever he says is pretty much along the lines of whatever I've been thinking of late, and it's good to know the thoughts of someone who's already done what you're trying to do. Get disciplined, not motivated!

In his words: "If you want to do something, just freaking do it already."

I've piled up quite the reading list of late so I'm going to go and start reading and being awesome.

Project FixMe

I've been reading a lot about habits. Whoever said "we are creatures of habit" was right. Everyone has habits, good and bad, and everyone lives their daily lives on the basis of these habits.

I used to think that I'm a strong willed person, and I could do anything if I really wanted to. The more I think about it and observe myself, however, the more apparent it becomes that I'm a slave to my habits, just like everybody else.  I used to think that I could change all the bad things about myself in one shot if I really tried hard enough. Again, an illusion. Your habits are who you are, and its not exactly easy to change who you are overnight.

It takes concentrated effort to actually change something about yourself, and you're more than likely to fail at the first attempt. I now realize that becoming who you want to be is an ongoing process, and you may be successful after several iterations and changing yourself in tiny bits. And it will probably take a lifetime.

I've also realized that I tend to put things off by giving myself arbitrary excuses. However, the logical me believes that unless there's a strong reason for putting something off, there's no better time to start than now. 

In that spirit, I christen this effort to reprogram myself as "Project FixMe". I've opened a publicly accessible Google spreadsheet (link below) to mark my progress against some pre-decided goals, with the aim to achieve these goals and make them habits.

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Interesting reading on "habits" can be found here and here.

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My spreadsheet can be found here. My first goals are sleeping by 12AM each night, and getting 8 hours of sleep.

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"We are what we repeatedly do, therefore excellence is not an act, but a habit"
- Will Durant

Discipline, Success and Wisdom.

For most people, it takes a number of attempts at anything to get it right. You have to persist, and if you are disciplined enough, you'll eventually get where you want to be.

I've realized a few things since I've started working. Discipline is very important for success, no matter what you do. If you identify, organize and prioritize your tasks, have action items, and complete those action items according to plan, more likely than not you'll taste success. And things don't change overnight. Changing yourself takes time, and is difficult. Even though everyone wants to change for the better, not everyone is successful because at some point you just give up. The key is to keep at it.

It's not like I've suddenly discovered the formula for success or anything. These are pearls of wisdom that have been around for generations. And that's another thing I've learnt. Understanding comes with time. You can try to have the right mindset, but you can't force yourself to believe in something unless you understand it and the belief comes from within.

Unfortunately, as I read somewhere, age is too high a price to pay for wisdom.