Right Attitudes

Ideas for Impact

How to (Finally!) Stop Procrastinating, Just Do It

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Go to the gym consistently and unfailingly, even if it’s just to walk on the treadmill for ten minutes.

Even if your legs are sore, just go.

Even if you’re not feeling it, just go.

Even if there’s that something else you’d rather be doing, just go.

Just go.

Because once you’re there at the gym, you usually will get into the mood to run or achieve something more substantial.

Just do it.

Compel yourself to do just a bit of what you’re struggling to do.

Just taking action, even if you don’t plan on achieving much, can usually help you get and stay motivated.

Inertia will give way to momentum.

Idea for Impact: The “Just Do It” attitude can help you surmount mental blocks. Folks who actually get things done work at whatever they are interested in, even when they don’t feel like doing it.

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Inspirational Quotations #1017

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Pay as little attention to discouragement as possible. Plough ahead as a steamer does, rough or smooth—rain or shine. To carry your cargo and make your port is the point.
—Maltbie Davenport Babcock (American Clergyman)

The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land.
—Aldo Leopold (American Conservationist)

It doesn’t matter if a cat is black or white, so long as it catches mice.
—Deng Xiaoping (Chinese Statesman)

The best way to lose weight is to put the handle of the fridge two inches from the ground.
—Dawn French (Welsh Comedienne, Actress)

Right action is not a fixed right action, it is an action that is conditioned by love and respect. It is an action that considers the consequences of our actions in terms of whether or not they cause suffering.
—Martine Batchelor (French Buddhist Teacher)

The true measure of a career is to be able to be content, even proud, that you succeeded through your own endeavors without leaving a trail of casualties in your wake.
—Alan Greenspan (American Economist)

Words do not change their meanings so drastically in the course of centuries as, in our minds, names do in the course of a year or two.
—Marcel Proust (French Novelist)

Even the bitterest words that people say to one another seldom seem as divisive as the unspoken words that one expects from the other in vain.
—Hans Carossa (German Novelist)

The only reason people do not know much is because they do not care to know. They are incurious. Incuriousity is the oddest and most foolish failing there is.
—Stephen Fry (English Actor, Writer)

Slow down and everything you are chasing will come around and catch you.
—Zen Proverb (Japanese School of Mahayana Buddhism)

When the adulation of life is gone, the coward sneaks to his death, but the brave live on.
—George Sewell (English Physician, Poet)

Wisdom is one thing, to know how to make true judgment, how all things are steered through all things.
—Heraclitus (Ancient Greek Philosopher)

Where Empowerment Fails

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Empowerment—giving employees greater autonomy—boosts engagement and creativity. It builds job satisfaction and improves retention. However, the success of empowerment initiatives depends on the personality traits of the managers implementing them down in the trenches.

Middle managers who value behaviors like team orientation, collaboration, and respectful interactions are more likely to enable their teams to set their own goals and entrust them to complete tasks in their way. But many managers in hierarchical structures embrace a certain command-and-control reflex that gets triggered in positions of power. Empowerment means transferring power to someone else, something they loathe. The alpha dimension to the personalities of these managers ends up micromanaging and impeding the autonomy of those in their team.

Idea for Impact: Relinquishing control over others and trusting employees not to abuse that responsibility isn’t easy for most managers; it takes someone very self-confident and secure to discharge empowerment.

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Why You Should Make a Daily Appointment with Your Worries

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Set aside specific 15- to 30-minute appointments on your calendar for focused “Worry Time.”

Make them regular if possible, as in “I’ll worry from 4:00 to 4:30 p.m. every evening.”

If a worry emerges before or after your Worry Time, jot it down and tackle it later.

For the span of your set Worry Time, agonize over whatever is bothering you. Chew on your problems or write them down. Then commit yourself to get back to your routine.

Don’t do this right before bed or first thing in the morning, especially if you tend to wake up with a sense of anxiety over everything that needs to be done.

Ruminating about the past and worrying about the future makes staying in the present moment impossible. It’s mentally and emotionally draining. It interferes with moving forward. Therefore, by using this focused time for worrying, you can get your worries out of the way. Put off any emergent worries until your next scheduled worry session, just as you should ‘do’ emails at set points during the day instead of letting them disrupt your flow.

Limiting your time to worry can also make your Worry Time productive. By having a clear limit to how much time you can spend thinking about an issue, you can push yourself to seek a solution instead of ruminating endlessly.

With some practice, you’ll learn not to let those inevitable anxieties flood your thoughts throughout your day.

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Inspirational Quotations #1016

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A great writer is the friend and benefactor of his readers.
—Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay (English Writer, Politician)

The magic formula that successful businesses have discovered is to treat customers like guests and employees like people.
—Tom Peters (American Management Consultant)

The chief cause of failure and unhappiness is trading what you want most for what you want right now.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

When your own life is threatened, your sense of empathy is blunted by a terrible, selfish hunger for survival.
—Yann Martel (Canadian Novelist)

Successful careers are those that realize in the man the dreams of the child.
—Wallace Stevens (American Poet)

Because it is dangerous to ignore the existence of the irrational. The more cultivated a person is, the more intelligent, the more repressed, then the more he needs some method of channeling the primitive impulses he’s worked so hard to subdue. Otherwise those powerful old forces will mass and strengthen until they are violent enough to break free, more violent for the delay, often strong enough to sweep the will away entirely.
—Donna Tartt (American Novelist)

We are alone, absolutely alone on this chance planet; and amid all the forms of life that surround us, not one, excepting the dog has made an alliance with us.
—Max De Pree (American Businessman)

Trifles make perfection, and perfection is no trifle.
—Michelangelo (Italian Painter)

Pain was their body’s way of telling them that they’d pushed themselves to their limits—which was exactly where they were supposed to be.
—Richard Marcinko (American Navy Officer)

Ignorance is not merely a deficiency of knowledge but, in addition, it positively apprehends reality in a distinctive way. And being a distorted mode of conception, it creates a view of the world that is in opposition to, and in conflict with, the actual way the world is.
—Stephen Batchelor (British Buddhist Author, Teacher)

A man’s doubts and fears are his worst enemies.
—William Wrigley, Jr. (American Businessman)

Hate is Self-Defeating

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Hatred and anger are emotions that are ultimately futile and self-defeating. The Buddha taught that negative and destructive emotions toward others only harm the person who holds them. He said, “In this world, hate never dispelled hate. Only love dispels hate. This is the law, ancient and inexhaustible. You too shall pass away. Knowing this, how can you quarrel?”

Hate may seem successful when it binds perpetrators and victims in a cycle of mutual retaliation and destruction, but this is only a fleeting success. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. taught that hate often leads to more hate. He said, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness.”

Idea for Impact: Choosing love over hate is the only way to defeat hate. You can deny hate even this fleeting success by modeling love in your speech, attitude, and actions. Look past people’s shortcomings and choose to accept, tolerate, forgive, and love. This is the wiser choice.

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The Dark Side of Selfies

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Selfies are generally acceptable to a certain extent. They provide a means to chronicle oneself and curate the highlights of one’s life, and as humans, we have an innate need to feel acknowledged and seen.

Selfies can be a tool for self-love and expression, allowing individuals to communicate something about themselves and present themselves in a certain way. When taken intentionally, a selfie can give the illusion of control over one’s fleeting identities, which is a natural desire. It’s perfectly fine to create a persona and seek others’ approval, as a healthy self-identity depends on it.

However, when taken too far, the desire to be liked and accepted can quickly become a constant need for validation and status. Self-objectification can cause one to forget that self-identity is primarily based on subjective, biased perceptions of others. Using selfies as the ultimate self-expression can lead to overinflated self-importance and shameless self-promotion.

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Stop Getting Caught in Other People’s Drama

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If you’re drawn to a drama that has nothing to do with you, it’s okay to make yourself available briefly to help others fix their issues. However, beyond the seeming entertainment value of tuning in without any strings or consequences, odds are it’s actively interfering with your responsibilities.

Is getting consumed with other people’s drama just a form of escapism, allowing you to push attention away from stressful or unwelcome events in your own life for a brief amount of time?

To break the pattern of involvement in others’ dramas, shift your perspective and pay attention to what you’ll gain by not getting involved. Getting wrapped up in other people’s drama should never come at the expense of your own well-being.

Idea for Impact: Examine if you’re becoming interested in other people’s dramas because you’re evading your own reality. Set boundaries to preserve your own energy. Face your own life.

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Separate the Job of Creating and Improving

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You can’t write and edit, engrave and buff, or create and analyze simultaneously. If you try to do so, the editor will hinder the creator’s progress.

Don’t let the evaluator’s biases and entrenched behaviors get in the way of the maker’s creative process. Keep the niggling editor from creeping up during the initial draft.

Idea for Impact: In the early stages, the creator’s mind should be free from any judgment. Revising your way into a cut above is far more effective than trying to conjure brilliance out of thin air.

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  4. Did School Turn You Into a Procrastinator?
  5. “Leave Something in the Well”: Hemingway on The Productive Power of Strategic Incompletion

Why Hiring Self-Leaders is the Best Strategy

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The best leaders understand the power of self-leadership. When you have a team of self-leaders, you can step back and let them do what they do best—lead themselves.

To build a team of self-leaders, look for naturally curious, driven, and goal-oriented individuals. Seek out people who can work independently and collaborate with others when needed. These folks only need a little hand-holding, are self-motivated, and take the initiative without being told what to do.

Idea for Impact: With a team of self-leaders, you can focus on the bigger picture and trust that the day-to-day tasks are handled with care. So, consider hiring a team of self-leaders to take your organization to new heights. They’ll get things done efficiently and effectively while freeing you up to focus on what matters most.

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