Why not you?

https://www.thesecret.tv/stories/why-not-you/

Cutting Through Indecision & Overthinking

BY LEO BABAUTA

I’ve been working with a few people who are very intelligent, very competent, and very talented — but they get stuck in indecision and analysis paralysis.

In effect, overthinking and getting lost in endless options reduces their effectiveness and intelligence by producing inaction.
Taking any action is likely to be better than inaction and indecision, but we can get so caught up in trying to find the perfect decision that we make no decision.
The answer is to cut through the indecision and overthinking with action.
Before we talk about that, let’s look at what’s going on with smart, competent people who get stuck in their beautiful minds.

The Trap of Overthinking

For someone who doesn’t see a lot of possibilities, sometimes a choice is easy — you just choose the one that looks obvious.
But for someone who has an abundance of intelligence, there are many more doors than that. And choosing can seem impossible. So this person starts creating a decision tree in their mind: “If I choose this, then this might happen, which means I need to decide if I want this, and then that might happen … but then this other option brings three more decisions …”
They also will research every option, which leads to more research. It becomes an endless cycle of thinking through options, researching it, and through the research finding even more things to think about. No decision can ever be made!
It’s also impossible to analyze so many endless options, because each option contains a lot of uncertainty — you can never know how each will turn out, how important every factor is, what the probability is of each possibility happening.
The uncertainty in this kind of thinking is what keeps us stuck in indecision. We fear the uncertain outcome, and would rather have cold hard data, and much more certainty.
But we can never have the kind of certainty we’d like. We’d have to run experiments or do scientific research on every single thing before taking action, which means we’ve just missed out on opportunities as we did that research! Spending a lot of time analyzing comes with opportunity cost.
So how do we deal with this? By cutting through the overthinking with action.

Cutting Through with Action

If overthinking can be a trap of indecision, an unsolvable knot … how do we untie it? By cutting through it.
There can be no solving this knot through thinking — it’s thinking that gets us into it. Now, I’m not saying that “thinking is bad” … I believe we should contemplate pros and cons, that we should take a step back from action and get some perspective, see the big picture, consider the deeper Why of what we’re doing. But at some point, we have to say, “Enough!” And then take action.
Setting a limit for thinking can be a good way to do this. “I’m going to spend the next 2 days thinking about it, and then make a decision on Tuesday.” You consider the merits, you do a bit of research, you talk to other people. Then you decide, and take action.
How do you decide when there is no certain answer? You have to just pick something that seems to be the best, given your limited information. It’s like poker — you never have complete information, but have to make a decision based on what you do know, and the most likely outcomes (the likelihood is based on what you know, but you can adjust your mental probabilities with experience).
You start by taking a step back, think about your deeper Why as it relates to this decision … and also what you’re basing this decision on. Is it based on fear? On instant gratification of a desire? These don’t lead to good long-term outcomes, in my experience. The place to come from is long-term benefit — is this a loving action for those you care about, or for yourself?
Then you think about the different factors that weigh into the decision, and how important each are to you. You think about likely outcomes of each possibility (don’t limit yourself to just 2 possibilities), and weigh the probable benefits with the probable costs.
And then finally, you just go with the decision that seems best. Do a quick review of whether this is for the best long-term benefit. And then pull the trigger. Step off the plank.
You cut through all the doubts and fears and hand-wringing that are holding you back, and just dive in.
Get good at this diving in by doing it in small versions:

Write something short and publish it

Take a small action to your long-term dream career or business

Take a small action to be healthier

Declutter one thing that’s easy to decide on, rather than getting stuck on things that are hard for you to make a decision about

What decisions are you stuck on? Can you make a small decision that’s easier, and take action? It might give you more information that helps with the bigger decision. And in the end, the real benefit is practicing taking action without getting caught up in indecision and inaction.

The Most Neglected &; Powerful Act of Self-Care

zen habits: The Most Neglected & Powerful Act of Self-Care

The Most Neglected & Powerful Act of Self-Care

By Leo Babauta

Many of us are (rightfully) focused on taking care of our health, eating nourishing whole foods and trying to be active … while meditating and flossing and taking some time of disconnection, away from devices.
These are wonderful acts of self-care, and they are necessary and important.
But there’s one act of self-care that is very often neglected, and it might be even more important than all the others: the practice of loving yourself.
In fact, this is so often neglected that when I mention “loving yourself,” many people don’t know what that means. Many of us have never consciously done it. If we have, it’s so rare as to be a forgotten memory.
But it’s my belief that we should do it throughout the day, like trying to drink 8 glasses of water. We should give ourselves at least 8 doses of loving ourselves every day.
What is this “self-love” (not in the sexual sense)? Imagine pouring out love in your heart to someone you love dearly — what would that feel like? Now try doing the same thing for yourself. That’s self-love, and it’s a completely foreign concept for the vast majority of people.

Why It’s So Important

I coach a number of people, 1-on-1 and in small and large groups — and pretty much everyone I meet is hard on themselves in some way. In some kind of stress and pain. Disappointed in themselves, angry at themselves, constantly feeling inadequate.
Do you relate to this? I think most of us can find a good chunk of this in ourselves.
This is the basic problem that most of us face, every single day. We don’t love big portions of ourselves. We beat ourselves up, all day long. We stress out about uncertainty because we don’t think we’re good enough to deal with it. We don’t trust ourselves to stick to something, because we’ve formed a really bad picture of ourselves over the years. We get angry at ourselves for eating too much, drinking too much alcohol, messing up in a social situation, getting distracted and watching videos or playing video games, and so on and so on. We are harsh on ourselves, and don’t like how we look or who we are, in many ways.
This affects everything in our lives. It makes us more stressed, less happy, anxious, depressed, stuck, procrastinating, less happy in relationships, less focused, more likely to reach for comfort foods or distraction or shopping to comfort ourselves from the stress and pain of being who we are.
But if we could give ourselves love, it would start to heal all of this. Everything could shift. We could deal with uncertainty and chaos and difficulty in a much more resilient way.
Giving ourselves love is such an important act of self-care, and yet is rarely ever done.

How to Give Ourselves Love Regularly

Set reminders for yourself, everywhere you go. Put reminders on your fridge, on your computer, on your phone, on your bathroom mirror, in your car, at your desk, near your TV.
The reminders only need to be two words: “Love yourself.”
When you see the reminder, the act is very simple (even if it doesn’t feel natural to most people yet — give it time):

Pause and feel any stress, pain, self-doubt, anger, frustration, anxiety you might be feeling. Let yourself actually feel it, physically in your body, for just a few moments. It’s OK to feel this.

Now give yourself the balm of love. As weird or silly as it feels, just try it. Imagine first that you are sending love to someone you love very much — your child, your parent, your best friend. Imagine them going through difficulty, and send love from your hear to theirs, hoping to make them better. Notice how that feels in your heart. Now try it for yourself, generating the same feeling in your heart, but sending it to yourself instead.

Feel the love as a healing balm. No matter how little you’re able to generate, feel it wash over your stress, pain, anger, doubt … like a thick, syrupy liquid soothing the pain. Let yourself receive this love like the love you’ve been craving.

It’s that simple. It only takes a few moments — feel your stress and pain, send yourself love, let yourself feel it.
Do it 8 times a day. Or a dozen, if you can.
You need this care. Don’t hold it back from yourself any longer.

Forgiveness

Forgiveness is an act of love to the highest degree. This is not an act of cowardice, it is a holy union between you and your mystical energies that created you. It is telling them that piece of mind is important to you. In creating this peace, you say "I am strong enough and the only thing I can change is the way I see things." Only you have the power to make things as great as you want them to be.
#piccadillyinc

Childhood Memories

Why can't life be as it was in our childhood. Remember the stories of mythical creatures we were told? These in fact may be real. Every time you let your aggression reign supreme your given in to your darkness. However every time you love your neighbor as well as your surroundings love wins. Even if you have truth on your side, if you're shoving it down peoples throats, you are as bad as the with the falsehood you are dealing with.

#piccadillyinc

Why can't we just end this emmence hatred, and begin loving all?

Love should know no bounds, yet we constantly create boundries for it to overcome such as race, sexuality, sexual preferences to name a few. Could we just stop hating and start loving? What would be so wrong with that? We, as a human species, claim to be at the top of the chart, but do we observe other animals fighting over who said this or that, or what you wore this on this day and the list goes on. This is getting way out of hand. We need to start loving all. Some people say it can't be done, we are too divided, but I think we are up for the challenge. We got through worse. So nothing can get in our way.

#piccadillyinc