The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
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Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
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Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Externalize your commitments
pavlovian condition yourself
make it as frictionless to start as possible
Prioritize continuous removal of past inertia, no matter how small the change
Once removed, leverage present inertia to keep the chain going
Self-motivated learning shouldn't be learning in isolation.
I have had times when learning alone, where a close-friend would call me every morning to ask me what I was promising I will do today, and if I had achieved yesterday's goal. They barely even understood what I was doing. But, the shame of saying 'I didn't do it' would force me to keep myself accountable. (be warned, be kind to yourself. I have adopted this towards things I deeply cared about and failed. The shame of not finishing a commitment has sent me into depression before. I am better at having release valves now.) In a weird way, external deadlines forced on me never seem to provoke the same shame (sprint reviews, stand ups) that external deadlines I choose for myself do.
Also, make it as frictionless as possible. I was self motivated to learn the drums for years, until I could I put one right in my own garage. When its right there, it makes it so much easier to just walk to it and just start playing. Similarly, I always keep a book I want to read in my bag. When an ounce of motivation strikes, you want your ability to access the activity to be as seamless as possible. Mediums make a big difference in frictionless-ness too. I have found podcasts to be a much easier way to access learning. It isn't as efficient as books or videos, but I end up using it a lot-lot more often simply because of how easy they are to access.
Also, have loops that close. Many people who start too many things, get stuck in the rut because they don't have enough experience what that last 20% (that's 80% of the work) feels like and don't intuit the insane reward that comes with finishing something. Always start easy and build that "start-> enjoy -> suffer -> victory" loop. The more you do it, the easier it gets.
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