I would say that reflecting itself has been the most useful self-help thing to me. It serves as a sort of meta-self-help, in the sense of self-help for self-help.
For the past few weeks, I start every day off by writing a sort of journal entry where I reflect on things I’d like to improve on. Some examples: avoiding the internet, starting my work day early enough, giving myself enough personal time, and exercising. Eventually I want to move to other things like meditation, eating healthy, improving my ability to focus and think hard, and plenty of other things.
In the past, I’ve tried to address these things, but have realized that my efforts are often fleeting. I try for a few weeks, a few months, even a few years (in the case of exercising) and have success, but then something happens, I stop having success, and I just find myself not coming back to it and going into problem solving mode. Developing a system to reflect periodically had helped with this, and has been really awesome for me.
My system for reflecting periodically still is far from perfect though. I have been doing it at the start of my work day every time I have a work day (as opposed to an off, sick, or vacation day). Recently I’ve noticed that I’ve been feeling antsy to “just get started with my work”. This makes me eager to cut the reflection short, which prevents me from seriously thinking hard when I reflect. So I need to revisit this and try to find something that works better.
Reflecting
I would say that reflecting itself has been the most useful self-help thing to me. It serves as a sort of meta-self-help, in the sense of self-help for self-help.
For the past few weeks, I start every day off by writing a sort of journal entry where I reflect on things I’d like to improve on. Some examples: avoiding the internet, starting my work day early enough, giving myself enough personal time, and exercising. Eventually I want to move to other things like meditation, eating healthy, improving my ability to focus and think hard, and plenty of other things.
In the past, I’ve tried to address these things, but have realized that my efforts are often fleeting. I try for a few weeks, a few months, even a few years (in the case of exercising) and have success, but then something happens, I stop having success, and I just find myself not coming back to it and going into problem solving mode. Developing a system to reflect periodically had helped with this, and has been really awesome for me.
My system for reflecting periodically still is far from perfect though. I have been doing it at the start of my work day every time I have a work day (as opposed to an off, sick, or vacation day). Recently I’ve noticed that I’ve been feeling antsy to “just get started with my work”. This makes me eager to cut the reflection short, which prevents me from seriously thinking hard when I reflect. So I need to revisit this and try to find something that works better.