A while back, all the craze about productivity seemed to reside on Willpower. There are several good books about that topic. But what if willpower is overrated? I started to think more about the alternative when I saw a video about Optimizing the defaults. But actually, where I learned about this principle for the first time was in the book The Happiness Advantage. The author shares a great story about someone who finally got himself to practice playing an instrument, you can read about it here; Using the path of least resistance to build new habits.
In a recent Tea Time with Tim, he got asked how to find a Mentor. I made some notes because his advice was the best I’ve encountered on this.
The first habit you should form if you have a ratio of positive/negative emotions equal to or lower than 1:1 – that is you feel at least as many negative emotions during the day as positive ones – is exercise. As Tim Ferris noted in one of his interviews with Tony Robbins, at a point in his life he wasn’t able to cope mentally with his negative mental state:
Es fácil enfocarse sólo en la recompensa monetaria en los laburos. Dependiendo en si estas empezando recién o si tienes experiencia, es decir junior/senior, la remuneración debería tener una importancia diferente. Cuando recién empiezas y después de decidir lo que quieres hacer, deberías enfocarte netamente aprender. Hazte la pregunta: Con cual empresa/organización/emprendimiento aprenderé más?
I want to share this gold nugget from the Tim Ferris podcast. The episode is about Q&A and the question someone asks Tim is if he has ever felt like he was stagnant.