Hello Happenchance readers, I just wanted to confess something: I’m scared shitless.  

Why?

Because in less than three weeks, I’m going to be a first-time father.

Yet, even though I’m scared shitless, I know things will work out fine. I won’t leave the baby on top of my car, feed it paint chips, or dangle it over an alligator pit (and if I did, my wife would single-handedly fight off a pack of alligators to retrieve it).

Of course, this new responsibility is terrifying; the life of a very tiny person will be in our hands. But scared or not, I still have to be some baby’s daddy, and freaking out about it won’t do anyone any good. So I just have to accept that I’m scared shitless and proceed from there.

The wife and I, we’ll figure it out as we go along. We’ll make mistakes, maybe get CPS called on us once or twice (joke), but for the most part, we’ll be good parents.

How do I know this?

[Here's the part where I bring it around and make this post relevant for you, loyal reader]

Because metaphorical dragons aren’t so scary after you slay them.

Because doing a thing is the best way to stop being afraid of that thing.

Think about all those things you’ve done that at first terrified you but later were okay: your first day at school, your first date, the first time you shared your work in public, etc., etc.

Just the thought of doing them made your pulse quicken, your heart pound, and your stomach twist up into knots. But, after you did that thing, you look back and ask yourself “what’s the big deal?”

You can read articles on getting over your stage fright, but the best way to get over stage fright is to get on stage.

You can take classes in communications, but the best way to get over your fear of public speaking is to do some public speaking.

You can make great plans and avoid failure, but the best way to get over your fear of failure is to fail (publicly, and hard).

You can study martial arts, but the best way to get over your fear of getting punched is to get punched (then punch back, twice as hard).

Why does doing a thing reduce a person’s fear of that thing?

Because experience is the best teacher you’ll ever find.

Homework assignment:

Go do something you’re afraid of. You’ll be fine, I promise.

On to the links:

• Julien Smith, blogger and co-author of Trust Agents, just released an excellent new book called The Flinch. Right now, it’s free on Amazon, so go download it. 
• While you’re on Amazon, grab a free copy of The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. 
• I recently re-read Hugh Macleod’s book Ignore Everybody, and while I can’t share that, I can send you over to his 37 tips to be more creative in art, business, or whatever.
• This article is aimed at jazz musicians, but poses a question we could all benefit from asking ourselves: Do you wonder why you get crap results despite the amount of time you invest? Maybe you step back, forget the advanced stuff, and focus on the basics.
• This guy created something amazing: a one-stringed instrument called the Filari.
• My twitter pal @valeriestorey has started a cool series called How to Stay Creative Everyday. Check it out at her site. 
• Great design and predictions for the future? The Future of Science 2021 Map has both.

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3. Week 46 Roundup: Monticello, Procrastination, and Commuting

Muttering To Yourself in the Name of Productivity

I recently read here that prolific sci-fi writer Kevin J. Anderson has dictated about 50 novels into a recording device while hiking.

Hiking and story creation all at once? Why the hell didn’t I try this before?

To test KJA’s technique, I left for a hike with only the seed of a story and a little digital recorder. When I returned, I had a reasonably well-developed first draft in my recorder. I still have to type it then run it through the revision mill, but I was happy with the results.

Some people might have an easier time getting ideas out by speaking rather than typing. Test this for yourself and let me know in the comments if this worked or has worked for you.

(A few years ago, the sight of someone walking around muttering to themselves might’ve been troubling, but we’ve all heard one half of some bluetooth user’s conversation. It doesn’t matter. Mutter away, my friends.)

More on muttering: 

Here’s an older Times article from award-winning writer Richard Powers on dictation.

If you can’t be bothered to type what you record (or you shudder when you hear the sound of your own voice) you could try Dragon NaturallySpeaking (aff. link).

Related to K.J. Anderson’s dictation-while-walking technique, this article from the Association of Psychological Sciences discusses new researh on the links between body movement and creativity. One choice quote:

“Actual physical acts appear to activate the abstract processes that overcome mental rigidity and make new connections—the nuts and bolts of creativity.”

Genetic Stuff 

How much do your genes matter in learning and creativity? Are some people born brilliant and able to do advanced calculus?  In the article How Much Do Genes Matter, Scott Young does a great job of qualifying intelligence and making a case that training and skill improvement (leveling up) are just as important as genetics.

A couple weeks ago, Tyler Tervooren tweeted something about DRD4 (dopamine receptor D4), the novelty/thrill-seeking/adventure gene. Now he has an article entitled Hack your Genetics for Better Risk Taking.

Even though genetics may play a factor in your proclivities toward car theft and sky diving, in the overall scheme of things the amount of effort you put into yourself and your work still matter more than any inherent talent. Just as important is your perseverance, or as Jocelyn K. Glei describes it in this excellent article, grit. I agree.

All this reminds me of a quote (and I’ve forgotten the source):

“I work my ass off so somebody with half the dedication and twice the genes cannot outperform me.”

Other stuffs

Alison Gresik has a great article about working retreats and the benefits of loneliness on Sean Ogle’s site. I’ve spent several months on solitary working retreats, and I think they’re a kick-ass way to grow as an artist/craftsman/whatever. Plus it’s pretty easy to incorporate travel into a working retreat.

I’m including this article as much for the headline as for the content: Top 9 Ways to Deal With Business Overwhelm (So You Can Avoid Thoughts of Mass Murder). I would only like to add this pro tip:

it’s not the thoughts of mass murder that get you in trouble.

Have a freaky halloween.

Seth

photo credit: goaliej54

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3. Week 46 Roundup: Monticello, Procrastination, and Commuting

You can put out a fire by dousing it with water, dirt, foam, ammonium phosphate, or other specialized concoctions. However, one extinguishing agent won’t work for all fires. You can throw water on a grease fire, but this will cause flaming grease to spread (think napalm). Spray sodium bicarbonate on a gas fire and it will continue to burn.

Resistance, like fire, manifests in diverse ways. But unlike the different classes of fires, no one has yet classified the different classes of Resistance. Procrastination is a form of Resistance, but so is the rewriting of the same sentence twenty seven times.

Left unchecked, Resistance will spread, consuming much and leaving nothing but the burned-out frame of abandoned dreams. Use the wrong approach to defeating it, and the Resistance may spread.

For these reasons, it’s good to have a wide variety of Resistance-defeating tools at your disposal; what works for one manifestation of Resistance may not work for another.

[BTW: If you’re not familiar with the concept of capital R Resistance, check out my review of The War of Art. There you'll find a additional strategies for defeating Resistance.]

Tools for Defeating Resistance

1. Keep a time log. For me, this is a nearly fool-proof strategy for overcoming Resistance. Like a monetary budget, a time log makes you hyper-cognizant of each minute you spend during work time.

My time logs are pretty simple. In a blank page in my notebook, I note the date then make two columns:  one for start and finish time, and one for what I’m working on. I note any time interval greater than 5 minutes.

When used in conjunction with the Pomodoro Technique, a time log is one of the post powerful anti-Resistance tool I’ve encountered.  The Pav wrote a great article about time logs a few years ago.

2. Do 5 Minutes. The thought of tackling a massive project all at once can result in paralysis. If you’re having a hard time starting, just sit down and do five minutes. After that, you can go back to your favorite procrastinatory activity. A big project is hard, but five minutes is easy. Do five minutes, take a break, then repeat.

Frequently you’ll find that five minutes is the tiny push you needed to create positive inertia, earn a small win, and take the first step to changing your behavior.

3. Lower your Standards (a little). This might sound bad, but in fact it works quite well. Allow yourself to do work that isn’t up to your usual Olympian standards. Allow yourself to screw up, to fail. In most cases, the work won’t be as bad as you imagine it will be, and if it is, you can always improve it before you ship.

When you’ll settle for nothing less than world-class work, you’re setting yourself up for world-class pain. You’re also giving Resistance an easy way to turn a simple project into a quagmire.

4. Limit Your Time. Productivity geeks love cite Parkinson’s Law, and I’m no exception: Work expands to the time allotted to it. If you know you only have one hour to do your work, you’re going to have a much harder time making excuses and trying to weasel your way out of this work.

When I give myself a leisurely amount of time to work on my writing, for example, I usually fill an afternoon doing what should take an hour or two. But if I limit the drafting to, say, three tomatoes (1 tomato = 25 minutes hyper-focused work), I can usually finish it up in four tomatoes.

I’m currently recording an EP. In the past, I’ve allowed recording projects to take up months and months and ended up with substandard results.  This time, I gave the boys and myself a deadline of just over a month to finish tracking. So far, we’re far ahead of schedule. I’ll write more about this later.

Why do you think deadlines are so blisteringly effective?

5. Work in the mornings. This may not be for everybody, but for me I love starting work when I’m fresh from a good night’s sleep. I’m not sure why this is effective; perhaps the inner critic hasn’t had a chance to wake up. Maybe stress levels are lower and it’s easier to achieve flow.

Maybe each even that occurs throughout is a barnacle that attaches itself to the hull of a ship. The more barnacles you have, the more resistance you’ll encounter, and the longer you’ll take to reach your destination. Sometimes the barnacles begin to fall away in the wee hours.

Finally…

I hope that these tools will help you win a few battles, but remember that Resistance is a relentless foe. As long as you’re doing something worth doing, you’re going to encounter Resistance. To paraphrase Steven Pressfield, the author of The War of Art, “the war of art is ceaseless, a conflict where victory is measured in inches.”

You can procrastinate, whine, and complain, or you can get to your desk, stop overthinking, and do the freaking work.

The choice is yours.

Share with 3,700+ monthly readers

• What is the most common type of Resistance you face? Or, how does Resistance manifest for you?
• What’s your favorite tool for defeating Resistance?

Find something useful here? Then why not subscribe to Happenchance email updates? They’re free, convenient, and always unique.

Photo credit: jurvetson

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In my youth, I slayed countless dragons, trolls, wyverns and slime monsters. I completed perilous quests, hoarded potions, learned the lore of several diverse worlds, and even flew more than a couple airships.

No wonder I was a pasty kid.

If I’ve lost you, I’m referring to my youthful obsession with role-playing video games (RPGs) like Final Fantasy, Dragon Warrior, Kings Quest V, and a couple others. (okay, so I lost a couple months to World of Warcraft in my mid-twenties. Whatever).

While the utility of such digital diversions is debatable, I learned something wildly important from these games:

You become a badass by gaining XP and leveling up.

While playing RPGs you collect XP (experience points) by defeating ever-more challenging enemies. You start out a chicken-kicking weakling who has just lost her entire village to a monster attack and you end the game a powerful mage who uses her fire magic to immolate her nemesis.

To build a badass character, you have to spend hours and hours engaged in a practice called grinding. Grinding means spending hours in the forest killing slime monsters in order in order to gain XP and collect loot. More XP and loot allows you to level up and move forward in the game.

The Hidden Life Lesson in Every RPGs

Building your life is like building a character in an RPG (albeit far more complex and interesting). To improve your life, build your skills, and level up, you have to do some grinding.

If this were a cheesy personal development blog (okay, it kind of is, grr), then I might call this post ‘Level Up your Life’ or some other alliterative silliness. But I prefer the –ing rhyme.

This idea of grind->gain XP-> level up is obvious, but too many people miss it.

• Want to level up your career? Then stop bitching about how much your job sucks and start grinding in order to build those skills that will improve your current job, allow you to start your own business, go freelance or find another job.
• Want to level up your finances? Shut up about the damn economy and start learning  about the psychology of money. While you’re at it, you might want to work on those  impulse-control skills. Understanding the true cost of interest helps, too.
• Want to level up your earning skills? Build your marketing skills, learn to turn your passions into profits, or go back to school.
• Want to max out your time management and productivity skills? Buy and use this book
• Overleveraged, underemployed college graduate? Go teach English in Asia. What you miss out on in career-XP you’ll make up for in loot collected.
• Want to level up your writing skills? Then start writing. Reading books and blogs on writing won’t make you a better writer unless you actually write. That’s like reading a game’s instruction manual in order to level up your character.
• Want to level up your charisma? Then apply some of the time-tested goodness from Dale Carnegie’s classic book (free on archive.org)

This is simple: if you want to level up your life (damn it, I said it), you have put in a lot of dedicated time to gaining experience and improving your skills.

Start with Slime Monsters, Not Wyverns

Remember what I wrote about Small Wins? This RPG approach to skill-building is no different. Unless you’re suicidal, you wouldn’t direct your level 1 character into a cave full of level 20 trolls.

And, speaking from my own hair-pulling experience, you shouldn’t set a goal to earn $5,000 a month from freelancing in 3 months if your previous freelance income is zero.

Reduce Your Grinding Time

Up up down down left right left right B A hit start.

Sometimes, when you kill an enemy, they drop a rare item, for example the  Flaming Sword of Awesome. This FSoA allows you to gain a lot of experience (and level up) in a hurry. FSoAs require more effort than the Konami code, but they do exist. When you find one, make good use of it. You still have to grind, but just know that there’s no speed limit.

Talk to me

• What skills would you like to level up?
• Do you have a flaming sword of awesome to share? (i.e. a strategy to gain experience faster?)
• Warrior or mage, which are you?

Photo cred: aztlek

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Most of you have plans, goals, and projects. What’s stopping you from working on them? What are you waiting for? When are you going to do the things you said you wanted to do?

Before we start, know that I’m not (entirely) a self-righteous bastard. At one time or another, I answered ‘yes’ to each of the following questions (except one) as an excuse to delay action. Today I share them with you in the hopes that by exposing their ridiculousness, I’ll help you reach your creative goals just a little faster.

First, two things to know:

1. A vast majority of the shit that’s stopping you is in your own head. Hence the reason for ‘mental karate’ in my new and marginally improved slogan. Train your mind, your ass will follow.
2. What you do today is a di rect result of what you did yesterday. What you will do tomorrow is a direct result of what you do today.

1. Are you waiting until your circumstances change?

They won’t change until you make them change. Your circumstances are within your control. Unless you’re incarcerated (in America, there’s a 1 in 100 chance you are), you have the freedom to create better circumstances for yourself.

Or you can adapt to the circumstances you find yourself in. Go with what you’ve got and consciously work to improve things along the way.

Exception: People experiencing truly painful and/or tragic circumstances. If you’re in a place like this, be kind to yourself and take all the time you need.

2. Are you waiting until you have more time?

You’ll never have more time. You’ll never have less time. You have about 16 useful hours in a day, just like everyone else.

The question is: how will you use those 16 hours? On what will you focus?

Will you focus on fear-mongering news which functions primarily as a delivery mechanism for selling adverts to car dealerships and drug pushers?  Will you concentrate on moving a little digital avatar around a fake world populated by undersexed desk jockeys?

Or will you decide that creating something amazing is more important than amusing yourself with frivolities?

3. Are you waiting  for the economy to improve?

Will it matter if it does? Will it make a difference in your work? Probably not.

Each day you allow some flaccid excuse to stop you from doing what you know you need to do, your personal economy will continue to deteriorate. Forget the macro-economy. Unless you like worrying about things you have absolutely zero control over.

Build a side hustle, save wisely, and leave the macro-economic worries to the goons of Wall Street and Washington.  They’re going to keep fu**king it up anyway.

4. Are you waiting for a good idea to strike?

You’re going to be waiting a long time, brothers and sisters. If you really believe that you shouldn’t do anything until you have a good idea, you might as well hide out in your cubicle and wait for the next round of layoffs.

Or you can start working on something, even if you’ve got only a vague, half-baked idea as to what you want to achieve. When you get to work, amazing things happen and inspiration is far more likely to strike.

5. Are you waiting until you’re ready?

Unless you’re studying medicine or rocketry, you’re ready when you decide you’re ready. Education and preparation are vital, but they can easily become ‘useful’ forms of procrastination.

Note: planning is action, not preparation. Preparation is studying, reading, absorbing. If you’re in the planning stages, awesome. You’re way ahead of the game.

If you’re not planning, isn’t now a great time to start?

6. Are you waiting until someone gives you permission?

No one will give you permission. No one has the right to give you permission. We’re talking about your creative projects here.

You’re not at work. You can’t piss off your boss. You’re not at school. you don’t need the teacher’s approval in order to relieve your swollen bladder.

For your own projects, you are the boss, and you can’t fire yourself for doing something amazing/creative/provocative.

7. Are you waiting until life is less stressful?

Life will continue to be stressful. But like time, stress is subjective. Give yourself plenty of free/rest time and learn a few techniques for managing your stress levels.

8. Are you waiting until the fear abates?

It won’t. Wish I could tell you different. That’s part of the game. Fear and resistance. They’re like those rotten friends of your roommate who never seem to leave. They know you despise them, but they just smile at you as they drink (and don’t even finish) your last two beers.

Every time I share something with the world, I imagine hellfire and brimstone raining down upon my little world. So far, nothing’s happened worse than the occasional ash dusting.

If you’ve never had a roommate with rotten friends, imagine fear as a deformed lizardy creature latched onto the back of your head.

Now visualize flying to Cambodia, renting an RPG, tossing the creature far away from you, and going to town on that son of a bitch. You’ll never kill it, but you can at least cripple it and show it who’s in charge.

9. Are you waiting to win the lottery?

You’re an idiot.

Finally…

Take a moment and examine your answers. Hopefully you gave a resounding ‘no’ to each of them. If not, hold your yesses up to the light and turn on your bullshit detector. What’s left? Probably nothing but a couple flimsy excuses.

We humans are notoriously good at choosing the path of least resistance. We create these disempowering mental scripts and repeat them to ourselves until we believe them..

Why? Because making excuses and answering yes to these questions allows us to stay on the safe and easy path.

Remember, most of what’s stopping you is in your head. You can keep answering yes, but maybe it’s time to say no.

Talk to me

• What will you do today to prepare for tomorrow?
• Did you answer yes to any of these questions? If so, what’s your next step?

If you enjoyed this post, why not join my regular readers and sign up for email updates? It’s quick, easy, and you’ll conveniently receive future posts in you inbox.

Photo cred: libertinus

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Is your project stuck? Are you working on something but feel like there’s no end in sight? Maybe it’s time to reframe the way you look at wins. We all want big, victorious completions, but sometimes it’s better to scale it down and celebrate the first victories, the small wins.

If you’re building a ship, forget the champagne bottles and marching bands before the maiden voyage. That’s a year away. Celebrate when you finish the blueprints.

Karl Weick, in his influential 1984 American Psychologist article “Small Wins: Redefining the Scale of Social Problems” laid out pragmatic reasons for celebrating small wins. His examples are diverse, ranging from the Apollo 13 mission to the manufacture of Rayon.

Since most of us aren’t astronauts or factory magnates, we need ways to apply this concept to our creative projects.

First, let’s define small wins. A small win

• is “an outcome of moderate importance.”
• isn’t necessarily the next logical step towards a goal (i.e. not step 3 of 42)
• moves you in the general (rather than the specific) direction of your goal.
• is more easily viewed as a win in the context of a finished project.
• preserves the gains achieved by other small wins.

Why are small wins so effective?

Weick writes that “once a small win has been accomplished, forces are set in motion that favor another small win.”

Think inertia here. Getting that first win is difficult, because objects at rest tend to stay at rest. Once you have that first small win, however, you’re in motion, and objects in motion tend to stay in motion.

When projects and problems are extremely complex, you may encounter some distortion in the steps necessary to reach the end point. Small wins remove this distortion by giving you a clear next step.

I believe this is why Getting Things Done is such a popular methodology for personal effectiveness; next actions are easy, and completing them gives you the feeling of progress.

Small wins are similar to the systems approach because they allow you to break a complex task or operation down into small, discrete subsystems. Weick writes that “a system with fewer interdependent events is a simpler system. It is easier to comprehend, easier to control, easier to improve.”

Small wins are effective because:

• they build a pattern of action that propels you forward.
• they simplify complex problems and projects.
• they give you a sense of completion for ongoing projects. Projects without a definite endpoint require these small wins to keep you engaged.
• they reduce stress (which increases engagement) by giving you tasks you know you can finish.
• humans crave and enjoy completion. Imagine not knowing whether or not Frodo reached Mordor with the One Ring.
• all but the most dour bastards love to celebrate. Small wins give you plenty of reasons (excuses) to celebrate.

Examples of applying small wins:

• Building a website. Simply setting out to create a site with authoritative content, good design, and plenty of features sounds like a beast of a task. If you start out with this as the primary goal (and its completion as the win you’re going for), you’ll be frustrated. If, instead, you approach this as a series of discrete tasks with each completion a win, you’re more likely to finish the site.
• Writing a book.  Setting only a goal of ‘finish this cyborg-vampire saga (Vyborgs, hehe) by the end of the year’ is most likely setting yourself up for a combination of pain, disappointment, and frustration. However, a goal of ‘write 500 words today’ is easy. Repeat that for 160 days, do your editing along the way, and you’re sitting pretty at 80,000 words (note: if you do set out to write a novel, be sure to check out Syd Field’s Screenplay and spend some time on Storyfix.

Talk to Me

• How have you used small wins to propel your projects forward?
• What are other examples/applications of small wins?
• Here’s a chance to clarify you’re thinking and maybe get some feedback: If you’re stuck on a project, what could you do today that would give you a small win?

Photo credit: atlih

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3. 5 Simple-Yet-Powerful Tools for Defeating Resistance

Right click to save…

Why is behavior change so hard? Why do so many people have trouble making the jump from saying ‘I want to do this’ to actually doing it?

In this post, I’ll attempt to answer these questions and more. The kinds of behaviors I’ll address in this article are mostly positive ones relevant to my awesome readers.

I’m more interested in showing you the strategies that will help you reach your creative goals rather than in teaching you how to quit eating cookies in bed.

If you’re in a hurry, here’s the gist: Start by establishing a pattern of action. Use information as a springboard.  Aim for small, rather than gargantuan wins. Make sure you’re starting this behavior for a positive reason. Set up your physical environment in a way that reduces Resistance. Use triggers to keep the new pattern of action in your mind.

1. Behaviors are patterns of actions

We think that we can make up our minds and decide to do something. For some people and some behaviors, this works, but most people find behavior change isn’t so simple.

A good way to think about behavior is to take a bird’s eye view of things. Imagine looking at your actions on a timeline. Do these actions occur on a regular basis? Do you see a pattern?

Your behavior re: a certain skill is nothing more than a pattern of action.

Like any skill, you have to start with basic stuff: defining what patterns you want to establish and what actions you need to take.

When you start taking action, you will probably encounter Resistance in one of its many guises. The key to defeating resistance and taking action is to focus on getting several small wins under your utility belt.

Think about an RPG like Final Fantasy. When you start out, do you head straight to the enemy’s lair and battle Garland or the Four Fiends? Of course not. You start by stomping slime creatures in the forest near your village. Only when you gain XP by establishing a pattern of successful wins   against little enemies can you start taking on bigger foes like Wyverns and Golems.

RPGs aren’t for everyone, but they can teach us a valuable lesson:

Build your XP (experience points) before the big battles.

Example:  to establish a pattern of daily writing, you might set a goal to write 1000 words a day. But if you’ve never built the skill of hitting this goal on a regular basis, you’re likely to be frustrated. The better path is to start with 250 words a day for X number of days then work your way up.

Most Nanowrimo participants don’t survive the first week. The attrition rates are mindboggling. Why? Because unprepared participants lack the XP necessary to write 1,667 words per day for 30 days; they haven’t established a pattern of action that makes this goal reachable.

2. Information without Action is Worthless

Information is only as useful as what you do with it. Consuming information is a starting point for behavior change, but it’s not even the first step in behavior change.  Sure, information may influence your behavior a little bit, but any effects are likely to be temporary.

You can know something and still do nothing.

Simply reading about what you want will not make it happen. You have to put in the work and effort to internalize the information.

Information alone is of little value. You find value when you apply this information. Creating value can be anything from committing to memory what you’ve read to setting a couple simple goals and creating an action plan.

3. We Overestimate What We Can Do…and  nd up doing nothing

Imagine picking up a trumpet one day and expecting to play like Miles Davis the next. Kind of a silly thought, right? But why? Besides learning the basics like fingering and scales, your embrasure needs time to develop. You have to learn how to breathe, to properly move air. You have to learn how to listen.

And most importantly, you have to have a pattern of action.

Yet, too many people attempt to make big changes without a solid pattern of action. They pick up a horn and expect to hear Bitches Brew. They’re lucky they hear something that sounds like a goat.

With pneumonia.

The result? Utter disappointment. Frustration. Discouragement. A feeling of “this is impossible.”

A better solution is to define one small component of the behavior you want to change. Again, focus on small wins and XP-building.

4. Fear-Based Behavior Change Doesn’t Work

This sounds nauseatingly  Pollyana-ish, but it’s much easier to change a behavior when you have positive reasons to change a behavior (‘that’d be awesome!’) rather than negative reasons (‘I know I should’).

In short, guilt and fear are lousy motivators.  This, according to a literature review from Professor Paschal Sheeran from Sheffield University.

Individuals are more likely to change their behavior when they have benefits to gain, rather than negative effects to avoid. Nobody likes doing things because they feel like they have to.

Example: Let’s say you’re contemplating taking up a daily walking habit. Approaching this from the ‘I should walk so I can get some exercise because that’s what doctors say’ probably won’t work.

More effective: ‘I’m going to walk because I’ll feel better, have more energy, and enjoy the fresh air.’ Even better, ‘I have nothing to lose and everything to gain by going for a walk.’

Again, it’s easier to change your behavior when you have a damn good (positive) reason for doing so.

5. Your Physical Environment May Not Be Conducive To Change

Change is hard. Your physical environment can make this harder. Or easier. Resistance is a powerful force. The least you can do is set up your physical environment in a way that reduces resistance.

Some factors you can control. Others you can’t. If you live in Antarctica, you’re probably not going to develop a habit of swimming. Even daily walking is an ordeal. Since most of us don’t live in Antarctica, we need a better example.

Let’s say you want to paint but you live in a tiny apartment full of furniture. Going from one end to the other is like running a gauntlet. The windows are boarded up. You don’t even have any brushes. Is this space conducive to painting? For some, maybe, but most people would find it easier to do something (anything) else.

Unboard the windows. Create a workspace. Stockpile paints and canvasses.

You have to make things easy on yourself. Choose a behavior that’s possible to do in the environment you’re in, then figure out ways to minimize your start time.

6. Behaviors Require Triggers

Let’s face it: we can get excited about some new thing one day, but a week goes by and that excitement fades. Exciting new stuff pops up on our radar and that new behavior we had every intention of including suddenly seems less important.

After the enthusiasm fades, what do we have to help us take action on our new behavior?

Triggers.

According to BJ Fogg, motivation is short-lived, but triggers cause us to engage in a behavior. To paraphrase: put triggers in the path of motivated people and you’ll get the behavior you want.

In sales and marketing, triggers include prompts, calls to action, requests, and offers. Without such things, sellers would move far less product.

In your own life, you can create triggers by

• marking stuff on your calendar.
• setting up email reminders to engage in some behavior.
• writing your actions on cards and placing them somewhere you can see them.
• keeping your supplies/materials/tools in easy reach.

Resources

BJ Fogg’s work at the Stanford Persuasive Tech Lab is fascinating and highly recommended.

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Talk to me

• Do you have any behavior change strategies you’d like to share?
• What’s been the hardest but most beneficial behavior you’ve ever consciously developed? For me, it’s been the daily writing habit.
• You’ve made it through this article. Nice work. But I have to ask you: how will you use what you’ve just read?
• Bitches Brew or Sketches of Spain?

Photo credit: infrogmation

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1. Small Wins for Big Gains
2. The Myth of the Perfect Circumstances
3. What’s Stopping You From Creating Something Amazing?

Right-click to download audio version of this article

“I read and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.” – Confucius

The Value of Information

Information is cheap and overrated, like gasoline used to be. We’re drowning in it. Want to know about Napoleon’s exile? That’s easy. Untangling a crappy wiring job on a server rack? Okay. Freaky torture devices used during the Inquisition? Sure, no problem, you can learn that as well (see also ‘untangling crappy wiring’)

You can learn all the obscure stuff you ever needed to know, and while it might be interesting, it’s not necessarily valuable for you as a reader.

Value is created both by the creator/purveyor of the information, as well as the reader, and information is only as valuable as what you do with it. Simply knowing something has little value. Value is created when you actually apply what you’ve learned.  Information is just trivia unless it

• helps you make a better decision
• improves your skills (useful or otherwise)
• entertains or enlightens
• can be shared with or made useful for someone else
• promotes social change (see also the current middle east crises)
• can be synthesized and applied to previous knowledge

Here’s the problem: simply knowing something isn’t enough. Learning and knowing is easier than ever, but most people don’t take the time to derive value from what they learn.

You can know everything and still do nothing.

Read and Forget

Up to a point, passive knowledge is useful as well; you can learn a lot by simply soaking up what you read. Eventually, though, you’ll be become oversaturated and the returns you receive from studying a topic diminish. And you’ll forget a good part of what you read.

How many times do I need to read variations on the same thing in order to derive value from that information? How much information do I need to soak up in order to make the best decision? Apply the 80/20 rule to information absorption and it’s safe to assume we can soak up 80% of what we need in 20% of the time we spend reading.

You can spend weeks reading about a subject. This has its place. Reading is fun and builds your understanding.

But without using any basic memorization strategies the average person forgets a vast majority of what they read after 30 days. Does this seem like a good use of your time?

For fiction, I think that’s a damn fine use of my time. Why? Because the experience of reading is where I find value.

For everything else, for information meant to be actionable, however, we have to do more than just read.

See and Remember

Techniques like spaced review, association, mind-mapping and summarizing are all effective at helping you retain information longer.

My question: who actually does this? Come on, be honest. This is one of those things that you might hear, nod your head and say ‘oh, okay, that sounds good,’ then do nothing.

I write about this stuff and still only do this about 30% of the time. But, when I take the time to do it, I know I’ve got it. And if I do forget something later, it’s easy to refer back to my notes to remind myself.

To repeat: You can know everything and still do nothing.

Do and Understand

On their own, facts and information only have so much value. You have to create value by doing something with them.

For example, if a student wants to ensure she knows her facts about the Hussite Wars (first European wars to use gunpowder pistols), she can

• teach what she knows to her fellow students.
• draw parallels with other conflicts, associating relevant facts (gunpowder/church reform/etc)
• write a summary of what she learned.
• create a mind map for a visual representation of the factors surrounding the conflict.

But what if I want to learn skill specific-information about, say, effective music rehearsals? Is it just enough to read the strategies, nod my head, and go on?

Of course not.

Assuming I want to have more effective rehearsals, I’ll need to devise a plan to put this into action….then actually follow through with that plan.

One more example: Learning obscure, random, and/or strange facts is fun, but how can you apply this information?

Am I saying that useless information is entirely without value?

Absolutely not.

Besides its inherent entertainment/interest value, you can create  more value by sharing this information with people. Use your ‘useless’ information to make somebody laugh, think, or cringe (see Inquisition torture devices) and you’ve suddenly created value from that information.

Action: Next time you read something potentially useful, make a note of it and look for ways to derive value from what you just read.

tl;dr You can know everything and do nothing. On its own, information has little value. However, you can make good use of your time and create value from information by doing something with it.

In a few days, I’ll publish Why Is Behavior Change So Damn Hard? This post will give you a few things to try out, including tactics for deriving more value from information. Join the Happenchance email list to get it when its fresh.

Talk to me

How much of what you read do you apply? Do you take notes on what you read? If so, how do you keep track of them?

If you enjoyed this article, you can derive value from it by retweeting it, liking it, or leaving me a comment.

Photo cred: macsurak

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I’ve been back in the states for about two weeks now. I stayed in Korea just long enough to adjust to the time zone, and when I returned the jet lag hit me pretty hard. For me, jet lag crashes my concentration  and gives me  short-term ADD.

Fortunately, during my tenure as content producer for this fine site, I’ve studied these topics in-depth and know a few ways to counter this pain-in-the-ass side effect of being a member of the hillbilly jetset.*

I know plenty of people struggle with maintaining concentration and focus (unrelated to jet lag), so I thought I’d share a few of my favorite methods for improving concentration.

Do one thing. When you can’t concentrate, you may be overestimating what you can do. When I overestimate, I tend to jump from one low-value task to another. My solution? Pick one high-value task to work on and ignore everything else.

Do something else. When you really can’t concentrate, putting in more time is like attacking a bear with a fork. You might do a little damage, but you’re going to get your ass kicked.

Minimize distractions. Close all those extra windows and tabs. Hide the cell phone. Turn off the little wireless switch on the side of the laptop. All this eliminates the potential for distraction.

Write down everything. By writing down every single task you think you need to do, you can eliminate a fair amount of mental chatter. In GTD-speak, this is a mind sweep. In Happenchance-speak, it’s a brain purge. Whatever you call it, it works.  Don’t think that you need to do everything on the list. As with alcohol, sometimes you’ve just got to get the poison out.

Track your time. The real benefit of tracking your time isn’t knowing what you’re spending your time on.  Rather, it’s being accountable to yourself for how you spend your time. Time tracking encourages you to work on what you told yourself you’d work on.  For example, if I spend an hour on Reddit, I know I’ll have to write that on my list (oh, the horror!).

Use the Pomodoro Technique. This involves working on one task in short 25-minute bursts. Between each burst (tomato, in Pomodoro parlance), take a break. After 4 tomatoes, take a longer break. When you start a new tomato, you can change tasks.

Take a walk. Fresh air and exercise can do wonders for your mental state. Plus, research shows that walking improves concentration.

Add some focus music. This won’t work for everybody, but some types of music help me focus.. Glenn Gould playing Bach.  Baroque stuff. Philip Glass. STS9 and some electronic music works pretty well, too. So do Monk and Coltrane. Basically, any kind of instrumental music; I find lyrics distracting.

Get far, far away from the internet and go outside (I’m not oblivious to the irony of this last point). But leave a comment first.

Over to you. What do you do when you can’t focus? Have any tricks to add that aren’t on the list?

*Hillbilly jet set: When I lived in Korea, I met more West Virginians (per capita) than people from any other US state. Why? Ambitious hillbillies go where the work is. This used to be Ohio and Michigan. Now it’s South Korea.

Photo credit: helga

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Imagine being able to alter your  body weight by 40%.

Craziness, you say? Sure, it’s crazy, but people do it all the time (over a period of years).

Want to hear something even crazier?

Your level of happiness is kind of like your body weight.

Both have base levels set by genetics. Over a long period of time, both are affected to some degree by the choices you make.

The difference? You want one to increase and another to remain around the base level.

How much control do we have over our happiness?

According to Dr.Sonja Lyubomirsky, a Positive Psychology researcher at University of California Riverside, your level of happiness is determined by three factors: genetic (50%), environmental  (10%, and intentional activities (40%).

While 60% percent of our level of happiness is determined by stuff that happens, either by birth or surroundings, the remaining 40% is mostly under our control.

The things we do, the habits we develop, and the decisions we make all conspire to affect our overall happiness.

Since the research shows we can increase our happiness, I’m conspiring with some PhDs (okay, just putting together some of their findings) to bring you research-proven ways to increase your happiness.

Before we go on, a caveat: I’m not saying unhappy people are always at fault for their unhappiness. These numbers don’t account for outliers. Some people experience trauma and loss so tragic they never recover.

However, I am saying that the vast majority of people have the capacity to develop and cultivate higher levels of happiness.

With all that in mind, let’s look at 7 PhD-approved, fat-free ways to increase your happiness.

1.     Find Flow

I’ve gone on and on about Dr. Csikszentmihalyi’s research into peak experience, and with good reason: people report ridiculously high levels of happiness, well-being and satisfaction when they experience flow on a regular basis.

To experience flow, you need a stimulating task or activity that is goal-oriented, provides feedback, and is adequately matched to your skill level. Flow-inducing activities include things like conversing, programming, sporting, working, writing, drawing, performing, gaming, etc. Link to the book

2.     Stay Focused

Two researchers from Harvard recently found that a wandering mind is an unhappy mind [link]. Using an iPhone app that sent questions to people throughout the day, they found that people were most happy when they were more intensely focused on their task, no matter what that task was.

Happily, anyone can increase their levels of focus & concentration with a little effort. Check out 16 Ways to Increase Focus. Freelance creative people might also try the Pomodoro Technique.

3.     Live Near Happy Friends

Remember that study about how real-life social networks affected obesity rates? Happiness is kind of like that.

Dr. Nicholas Christakis of Harvard Medical School found that happiness was contagious in the same way, spreading among people who lived close in close proximity to each other.

Quantifying your chances of happiness is a tricky thing, but that didn’t stop the authors from doing so: for each happy friend you have, you increase your likelihood of happiness by 9 percent; unhappy friends decrease this by around 7%.

4.     Increase Your Social Connections

According to a study published in 2006 in the  American Sociology Review, 25% of  Americans have no one to confide in, and people now have considerably fewer close friends than they did two decades ago. Facebook friends don’t count. This is troubling because people report higher levels of happiness when they’re with other people.

Yet, people are measurably happier when they’re with other people…even introverts receive a boost from frequent social connections. While getting out there can be tough for some people, the benefit is always greater than the cost.

5.     Have more sex

Dartmouth researcher David Blanchflower found that going from having sex once a month to once a week was, as far as happiness levels were concerned, equivalent to receiving a $40,000 annual bonus.

Since this is as obvious as Day Glo camouflage , allow me to throw in something totally counter to popular perception: to get more sex, consider getting married. In 2006, the Lancet published findings concluding that married people have more sex than singles.

6.     Practice Daily Gratitude

In 2003, the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology published research that confirmed what the major religions have known for thousands of years: consciously focusing on blessings and expressing gratitude makes people happier. Dr. Robert A. Emmons, one of the authors of the study, wrote in a later book that practicing daily gratitude can increase your happiness by 25%.

You can start by keeping a gratitude journal; everyday, or even once a week, simply write down three to five things you’re grateful or thankful for. If you do a weekly review, this would be a great time to do this.

7.     Reevaluate Your Priorities

A group of researchers recently examined 25 years worth of survey data of 60,000 Germans with an eye towards what made them  happy. The results were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Their findings? The happiest people were those who pursued goals related to altruism, family life, religion, health, and a happy work-life balance. The least happiest were those who pursued goals related to their careers or material success. Not surprisingly, having a neurotic spouse was also quite detrimental to long-term happiness.

Over to You

What can you add to this list? What have I forgotten? Have you used any of these ways to increase your happiness (If #5, no details, please)? Please drop me a line in the comments and let me know.

Please subscribe to Happenchance if you enjoyed this post.

photo credit: rigtor. I made the snazzy pie chart.

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1. 16 Easy Ways to Increase Focus
2. 16 Ways to Increase Creativity and Generate Clever Ideas
3. One Trick for Increasing Your Happiness