We usually avoid difficulty whenever we can, but I try to do something difficult every single day.

In this video, I’ll explain the three main reasons behind why I’ve chosen this approach.

And it all starts with the comfort zone.

When we're in our comfort zones, we're not pushing ourselves.

At the first glance, there seems to be nothing wrong with that.

Why would we voluntarily put ourselves in a position of struggle, if we don't have to?

But if we only live our lives in comfort, we might be unknowingly doing ourselves an injustice.

Hopefully by the end of the video you will be inspired to leave your comfort zone and do something difficult today yourself.

You can get "The Paradox Of Choice" book here:

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When we have very little choice, or perhaps even no choice, we are very likely to be unhappy.

But as you gain more options, and you have the ability to choose between them, your happiness increases.

So, obviously having choice is good.

But what's interesting, is as you get more and more options, your happiness doesn't keep increasing.

Instead, counter-intuitively, it decreases.

In fact, having too many options to choose from, can be just as bad, as having no options.

So rather than liberating us and making us happier, having a lot of options does the opposite.

Psychologist Barry Schwartz coined this phenomenon, the paradox of choice.

Because more becomes less.

When I was younger I used to play a lot of video games.

But as I grew older, they started taking too much time from my other activities.

For this reason, I started to gradually reduce the time I spent playing them, until I eventually quit.

But recently, I decided to incorporate some more down time into my schedule. And I gave video games another shot.

This is when I remembered just how fun video games can be.

It wasn't long before I was looking forward to the end of the day, just so I could hop on the computer and play. But this also got me wondering.

What exactly made those games so compelling?

And could I somehow apply those game elements to other areas of my own life to make them more desirable?

This is what I've learned.

Ending song:  Whitesand - Alchemy of Life

You can find it here:

   • Alchemy of Life - Emotional Instrumen...  

https://whitesand.bandcamp.com/track/...

https://open.spotify.com/track/10feK1...

The Happiness Advantage:

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We're all lazy to some extent. And there's nothing wrong with that.

However, most of the time, it's those exact moments of laziness that make us overindulge on our bad habits.

We all have certain behaviours that we default to, and we tend to perform them almost on auto-pilot.

Those behaviours could be positive, or they could be negative.

However, instead of accepting all of our default behaviours, we should re-examine the ones that are not serving us and adjust them.

And we can use our lazy nature to our advantage here.

All we need to do is utilise The 20 Second Rule.

Does money buy happiness?

Can more money make us happier?

The answer to these questions is: Yes... And no.

It really depends on the individual, the situation they're in, and how they're spending their money.

In this video I'll examine the relationship between money and happiness.

And hopefully you'll be able to answer those questions for yourself.

Sources:

75k mark: https://www.pnas.org/content/107/38/1...

Relative position: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper...

Relative position 2: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...

Lottery winners: https://www.researchgate.net/publicat...

Working more vs working less: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.c...

Spending on others: https://www.researchgate.net/publicat...

If you're like most people, you probably have a to-do list, and you use it to help you focus on getting things done.

If you don't have it, you might want to make one, as it brings plenty of psychological benefits.

However, I would also suggest you create a not-to-do list.

This list compliments the to-do list incredibly well, and it might be even more important.

Let me explain...

Let's say you buy a $10 movie ticket.

But 15 minutes in, you realise this movie isn't what you expected it to be.

However, because you feel like you're supposed to get your money's worth, you decide to watch the rest of the 2 hour movie.

This decision is based on your loss of $10.

But it isn't an optimal one.

A more logical thing to do, would have been to get up and leave after you had realised this movie wasn't what you wanted to watch.

Wouldn't you be better off, had you only wasted $10 and 15 minutes of your time, instead of wasting $10 and 2 hours?

Had you left early, you would've essentially gained 2 hours of extra time.

Those $10 you spent were gone or "sunk" either way. You couldn't get them back, whether you watched the rest of the movie or not.

And that phenomenon is what psychologists and economists call: the sunk cost fallacy.

It's one of the more common cognitive biases that clouds our judgement.

Instead of making a decision based on potential future returns, we make them on our past losses.

I'm sure you experienced this before:

You might have had a breakdown or you might have had an epiphany.

Either way, you had this realisation that you needed to make some sort of a change in your life.

Suddenly you knew what you needed to do, and you even had the motivation to do it.

However, when you woke up the next morning, you didn't wake up as the new person you felt like you were the night before. You woke up as the same old you, with no motivation to make the changes you planned to make.

And in the following days and weeks, no additional exercise was done, there was no progress in your learning, and you still didn't get things done on time.

You have again, fallen back into your set ways, and failed to do what you said you were going to do.

But don't worry. You're not alone in this.

I don't manage to do everything I tell myself I'm going to do, either.

But I have found a way to substantially increase my odds of following through on my desired behaviour.

Instead of relying on motivation, which comes and goes, I started applying what psychologists call: implementation intentions.

Studies mentioned in the video for further reading:

Implementation intentions:

https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper...

Meta-analysis of implementation intentions:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science...

Coping plans:

https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper...

You can get the book mentioned in the video here:

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UK: https://amzn.to/3ghJ9oR

Nowadays everyone is constantly busy with something. But being busy doesn't mean we're using our time efficiently.

It's sad to say this, but most people completely waste their time.

And time is our most valuable resource. We can't make more of it, like we can make more money for example.

So it's wise to use our time in a way that will benefit us.

When we're bored, what do we usually do?

Most of us up end being glued to a phone, TV or a computer screen.

That might ease our boredom in the moment, and we might not even consider that time to be wasted.

But there's an opportunity cost.

That time could've been spent on a different, more valuable activity.

Specifically on something that could actually benefit us greatly in the future.

This is why in this video I'll go over 5 things that will help ease your boredom, and teach you to use your free time more productively.

There were two friends that grew up together.

However after they were done with their education, they went their separate ways.

One friend became extremely successful in every aspect.

The other friend however, became the exact opposite.

But no matter how different their lives became, those two friends still kept in touch.

In fact, they talked to each other every day.

That's because those two friends were actually the same person.

The first friend was that person's best and ideal version, while the second one was his worst version.

You and me both have those two friends inside of us. All of us do.

And we have the potential to become either one of them.

Which one we end up becoming though, is determined by the choices we make each and every day.

I bet you have many goals in life. I know I do.

It's good to have them.

But when you focus on your goals too much, you can actually decrease your chances of achieving them.

In this video I'll explain why that happens and why instead of focusing your goals, you should focus on creating a system.

The articles that inspired the video:

https://www.scottadamssays.com/2013/1...

https://jamesclear.com/goals-systems

You might have noticed that sometimes when the afternoon rolls around you become less productive. From roughly 1pm to 4pm, to be more precise.

During that time, you're not as motivated to do the work, you have a harder time focusing, and even the work that you do, is of lower quality.

A lot of people around the globe experience this exact phenomenon every single day.

And it has a name: the afternoon slump.

Want to learn more about this topic?

Check out Dan Pink's book which is all about the science of timing:

EU: https://amzn.to/2UtI18w

US: https://amzn.to/39wieku

Video references:

Hospital: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...

Hospital: https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/rel...

Danish students: https://www.pnas.org/content/113/10/2621

Walks: https://ijbnpa.biomedcentral.com/arti...

Power naps: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/f...

There's this one financial mistake I see people making all the time.

Anyone can make it, and often, they don't even realise they're making it before it's too late.

And it doesn't matter if they're earning 10 thousand or 10 million dollars per year.

This mistake can keep people poor forever. And even if they're wealthy, it has the power to make them broke.

So what is that mistake?

You probably don't have a problem playing video games or browsing social media on your phone. In fact I have no doubt you could sit in front of a screen and do both of those activities for 2 hours, or even longer without breaking your concentration.

But what about half an hour of studying? That might be too hard.

How about working on your side business for another hour? Doesn't sound too appealing.

Even though you logically know that studying, exercising, building a business or something equally productive, will bring you more benefits in the long run, you still prefer watching TV, playing video games and scrolling through social media.

One might argue that it's obvious why.

One activity is easy and doesn't require much effort, while the other activity is difficult and it requires you to apply yourself.

But some people seem to have no problem studying, exercising, or working on their side projects, regularly.

Which begs the question: Why are some people more motivated to tackle difficult things?

And is there a way to make doing difficult things, easy?

References:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...

https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/00...

https://www.centersite.net/poc/view_d...

Get the book "Elastic Habits" here:

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Let me ask you this:

Why do most people fail at creating habits that stick?

Well, there could be plenty of factors, but one major reason is they are not consistent with them.

They might achieve their habit goal one day, but then the next day something comes up, and they skip doing the habit altogether.

But the point of any habit, is to make it a habit in the first place.

This means doing it every single day without fail.

So how can we do that?

How can we become consistent with our habits so they actually stick?

The solution is to make our habits elastic.

Have you ever come across contradicting advice?

You might have read a book by someone you admire and they say that if you want similar results, you should do X.

However some time later, you come across another piece of advice by someone else in a similar position. But the advice is completely opposite to the previous advice you received. They say that you should avoid X and do Y instead.

So now you have two different people, both at a level you want to achieve, telling you different things.

Let's take a look at why that is and see whose advice you should listen to.

Get the book:

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In today's world, being busy is the new norm.

We have a ton of projects we would like to do, and whenever something new comes up, we try to fit it in our already overflowing schedules.

We believe that if we just work more and work harder, we can do it all.

However, being busy doesn't mean we're actually doing things that are important.

The truth is that most things that we do, aren't important at all, but instead are completely trivial.

The antidote to this overwhelming busyness is essentialism.

Has this ever happened to you?

One day, life seems to be going great and everything seems to be progressing well.

But the next day, you wake up with no motivation whatsoever and you suddenly feel stuck.

Just going through your daily routine is a struggle and it feels like a chore. And to make matters worse, you beat yourself up for not being as productive as you'd like to be.

What happened is you've entered a mental rut.

It's basically a state of mind where you feel stuck, purposeless and you're unable to motivate yourself.

And doing anything that day can be difficult.

Days like these will come unexpectedly, seemingly out of nowhere, and can last for days or even weeks.

You most likely already know what's good for you and what's not.

You know that eating fried, fast food, is not good for you.

You understand that laying on the couch, watching TV and browsing social media is also bad.

And you're fully aware that smoking is horrible for your health.

Now the question is: why do you do the things that you know are not good for you?

If you logically understand which habits are bad, why don't you avoid them?

In this video I'll explain why you keep on performing those bad habits and I'll give you a solution for the problem.

Most of us want to improve our lives. But for that to happen, we need to adopt certain positive habits.

Fundamentally speaking, habits play a key role in our day to day lives.

But not all habits are created equal. Some can have a much bigger impact than others.

This is why it's important that we learn to identify these habits and develop them.

Charles Duhigg, author of the book "The Power of Habit," calls them "keystone habits."

So what is a keystone habit?