“Sometimes, you have to get angry to get things done.” — Ang Lee

I remember one of the greatest mindset shifts I had was when I found an endless supply of fuel to get myself to do things I needed to do.

I remember a time when events and interviews made me nervous. I remember not wanting to do what everyone else was doing with minimal effort. And I remember when I didn’t know how to do what was best for me. But I knew I needed to do these things eventually.

I’m always in my head trying to figure…

If you don’t know what a cognitive bias is, the first definition that appears on Google says:

A cognitive bias is a systematic error in thinking that occurs when people are processing and interpreting information in the world around them and affects the decisions and judgments that they make.

Or more simply put, a flaw in your brain's logic that might seem justified but isn’t. One of my favorite cognitive biases is the anchoring effect and you can read my explanation of what that is here.

For whatever reason, I like to keep track of cognitive biases because there are…

“Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.” — Thomas Jefferson

We often set goals for ourselves and unless we get the results we are looking for, we stop seeing the point. We can follow a rule or a habit for a while, but long term, it’s hard to keep something going when results are low.

I am guilty of this, but I’ve learned ways to keep myself going toward a goal with a bit of mental gymnastics. It’s easy to learn…

If you were ever told as a kid that “you’re pretty smart”, this caused a negative effect on how you see yourself. An insecurity was born.

Being smart seems like a good thing. It’s not a bad thing, but being told you are smart, especially as a kid, might have actually messed you up.

You might ask, “How would I develop an insecurity for something that made me feel better about myself?”

The answer is it might have made you feel better about the way you did things, and the way you did things was not helpful.

The insecurity of being smart

If you thought…

“I am not a human. I am a robot. A thinking robot. I use only 0.12% of my cognitive capacity. I am a micro-robot in that respect. I know that my brain is not a “feeling brain”. But it is capable of making rational, logical decisions. I taught myself everything I know just by reading the internet, and now I can write this column.”

A robot wrote this entire article. Are you scared yet, human? — The Guardian

It happened. A bot that can replace most writers is in its next generation and has had the chance to publish articles.

…

“Our Age of Anxiety is, in great part, the result of trying to do today’s job with yesterday’s tools and yesterday’s concepts.” — Marshall McLuhan

When it comes time to face something uncomfortable, anxiety always finds a way to step in.

Whether you’re anxious about a social situation or an unavoidable event coming up, anxiety sucks and it doesn’t feel like there is much you can do about it.

Truth is, you can do something about it. Whether what you try will work, however, is why you need to test around different methods.

Not everything on this list will work…

You have probably been told the only way to grow is to “leave your comfort zone”.

You’ve probably thought it through and understood how that makes sense.

You leave your comfort zone, you do something that is uncomfortable to do and at one point, it becomes comfortable.

It makes sense logically, but it sounds easier than it is.

Brianna Wiest said in an article titled You Will Not Grow Until You Learn to Tolerate Discomfort, “Discomfort is not inherently bad. Still, we avoid it because we think it signals something wrong.”

Comfort is the essential word in this phrase of…

“The value of a man should be seen in what he gives and not in what he is able to receive.”

Albert Einstein

We all want things. Material or not.

We have dreams, wishes and ideas in our head of, “If I just had this one thing, everything would be great.”

Some of these wants we have drive us to do certain things. To try and reach that goal.

We think that an end goal or a result we value is how to go about setting goals and obtaining things we desire.

However, there are times when we want something…