Human nature: You’re going to need to persuade people to be

4 min readNov 29, 2020

For those of us who worry and experience subsequent anxiety, we tend to assign adverse events and outcomes more importance than they deserve. A rejection, a failure, or setback causes short term pain. But then we dwell on it. We play out worst-case scenarios and fret over the downstream effects.

How? Look at your micro-habits. What you do consistently will determine where you’re going. I can tell you my future right now by telling you one habit I’m willing to die for: writing.

To be successful, you have to understand that life isn’t fair. You need to learn the difference between the way the world works vs. the way you think the world should work.

I mustered the energy to sacrifice time. Again, reaching the traction point is key. You want to get some feedback that things will pay off in the future. Feedback loops are the central theme of this article.
In other words, you need faith. You can combat hyperbolic discounting by reducing the risk. You can reduce the risk by attempting projects in your spare time. When I was working on my writing, for free, outside of my 9 to 5 job, I wasn’t losing money. The paycheck was still there.
In time, we realize our worst nightmares were cartoonish fantasies that never had any chance of materializing. With the benefit of hindsight, we understand all that worry and anxiety were a waste of time and energy.

Months later, I stumbled onto an article about anxiety; this was the source of my problems, I realized. Low-grade anxiety had been a constant companion of mine since childhood, though I hadn’t realized it until I was in my 40s.So I tried it about four or five years ago. I haven’t slept through my alarm since. You can find a lot of extra time in the morning when you jump out of bed and don’t return. Once I’m out of bed I don’t feel like going back.Two years ago, I trudged into a therapist’s office, desperate for help. It had been weeks since I last slept for more than three hours in one night. For thirty years, I had battled occasional bouts with insomnia, but this was one spell I couldn’t shake.Attempt to be dispassionate, examine the stories you tell yourself, and analyze whether or not they’re true or useful. Deep down, you already know which stories are coping mechanisms and lies. But bringing them to your conscious awareness and resolving to change them can help.
It can still be a survival tool today. In some situations, it makes sense to value the immediate. This is a problem poor people tend to have as well. They can’t afford to save money. In your case, it’s hard to imagine such a large future payoff by forgoing an immediate one.
How can you develop long-term thinking? Not only that, how can you match your behavior with your thinking? You can train yourself to delay gratification. This goes back to the elephant and the rider. You have to develop the reasoning skills to see far into the future.The therapist used cognitive behavioral therapy to fix me. Like all my other attempts at a solution, I experienced short term relief but then regressed. Feeling defeated, I surrendered. I figured I’d have to live this way forever.

This is why people don’t invest. This is why people spend time on activities with a guaranteed immediate reward, e.g., a paycheck, and have a hard time doing delayed work that pays little upfront but tons later.
“It’s funny–not once have I found your articles mean or aggressive. There’s a difference between honesty and abrasiveness. You don’t harshly tell the truth, you merely expose the harsh truth.”
The problem was my alarm clock (also known as my phone). I remember hearing somewhere that you could cheat on yourself and your dreams of sleeping in by simply placing your phone on the other side of your bedroom.

Blind luck: Is it fair that I was born in America while others are born in Africa? People start out in different places due to luck. Luck shapes your success, too, even if you try hard. Sometimes you’re just at the right place at the right time or vice versa

If you want to create a micro-habit in your life then schedule it in your calendar now. I gave up meditation about six months ago. I was pissed with myself daily. Recently, I had enough; I scheduled ten minutes of meditation with myself every morning. Now I’m feeling the benefits of meditation again.

How? Look at your micro-habits. What you do consistently will determine where you’re going. I can tell you my future right now by telling you one habit I’m willing to die for: writing.

Human nature: You’re going to need to persuade people to be

Written by Chodonkhela