30 Self Help Pieces of Advice
Random Observation/Comment #806: Self help cliches are so cliche.
Random Observation/Comment #806: Self help cliches are so cliche.
Midjourney prompt: Ethereum futuristic city, chromatography artwork with fractals, perfect symmetry, pride colors, by Hokusai by James Gurney –ar 16:9 –v 5.1
Why this List?
I asked GPT4 to ingest all of my seelemons.com and listsof30.com websites and figure out a common theme to my writing and lists. With 236 lists of 30, it pegged me as someone that basically writes self help material. I guess that makes sense as self improvement is basically me telling people I’m awesome and the self-help category is usually positive. The summaries I’ve read via shortform.com or getabstract.com start to distill into more of the same.
With this idea, I decided to prompt ChatGPT to give me 100s of pieces of advice and then consolidate back down into a list of 30 written in my style with references to books. AI is pretty great. I edited and added some “organic” comments.
Embrace Change and Continuous Improvement (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Atomic Habits, The Compound Effect, The Power of Habit): Make small, consistent changes for big results. Baby steps always reminds me of “What About Bob.”
Harness the Power of Positive Thinking (The Power of Positive Thinking, Think and Grow Rich, The Magic of Thinking Big, The Happiness Advantage): Cultivate a mindset of abundance and prosperity. I’m glad GPT4 didn’t recommend reading The Secret.
Live in the Present (The Power of Now, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**k): Focus on the present moment and choose what truly matters. Sometimes you just need to put your phone away and engage.
Understand and Manage Your Emotions (Emotional Intelligence, The Four Agreements, The Four Tendencies): Practice empathy, manage your emotions, and understand others. This is probably the hardest one out of all of this list. As a Clembot, I cannot practice empathy.
Embrace Challenges and Fear (The Stoic Challenge, Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway, The Obstacle is the Way, The Growth Mindset): Welcome challenges and fears as opportunities for growth. “Do something once a day that fears you.” This is the way to be a stoic (and probably a paranoid person).
Find Your Purpose and Follow Your Dreams (The Purpose Driven Life, Start With Why, The Alchemist): Understand your purpose and follow your heart. I’ve found the simplest purpose is the best – live a life of perfect simplicity. I can’t believe I did my Epic 30 Day Challenge more than 10 years ago.
Practice Mindfulness and Meditation (Wherever You Go, There You Are, The Miracle Morning): Engage in mindfulness practices to reduce stress and improve mental health. I think mental fitness and wellness require exercise.
Cultivate Strong Relationships (How to Win Friends and Influence People, The Five Love Languages): Build stronger relationships through understanding and communication. My longest mantra was “health, happiness, and community”. Greatness is in the agency of others.
Maintain a Healthy Lifestyle (The 5 A.M. Miracle, The Blue Zones): Prioritize sleep, exercise, good nutrition, and relaxation for a healthy mind and body. I can’t emphasize how important daily exercise and movement is a big part of having energy and motivation.
Embrace Vulnerability and Authenticity (Daring Greatly, Embrace Your Weird): Be true to yourself and understand that vulnerability is a strength. Definitely keeping it weird and being myself in almost every situation.
Practice Gratitude and Contentment (The Secret, The Law of Attraction, The Power of Positive Thinking): Maintain a positive outlook and express gratitude to attract positive experiences. You don’t just think about gratefulness during the last week of November. It requires a habit and ritual.
Understand the Power of Your Thoughts and Words (The Four Agreements, The Power of Now, The Secret): Be mindful of your thoughts and words as they can influence your reality. While I did throw shade at The Secret, I do believe my thoughts will kickoff the process and goal of manifesting a new reality. In the fourth dimension, I’d just be able to see my full timeline and show points where I’ve made these conscious path changes.
Embrace Imperfection and Acceptance (How to Be an Imperfectionist, Wabi-Sabi for Artists, The Paradox of Choice): Accept and love the imperfection in all things and simplify your decision-making process. Sometimes things are just good enough.
Practice Effective Time and Energy Management (Getting Things Done, The Power of Full Engagement, The 80/20 Principle): Manage your time and energy effectively for high performance and personal renewal. Reducing the amount of decisions you have to make is probably the most important part about energy management. I’m only going to make 1-2 decisions a day and then just activate a bunch of subroutines or look into solving problems.
Cultivate Creativity and Innovation (The Artist’s Way, The Power of Broke, The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari): Unlock your creativity and use constraints as a catalyst for innovation. If you can do everything then you might not be motivated to do anything. Artistry grows with struggle.
Understand and Apply Spiritual Principles (The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, The Power of Now, The Alchemist): Apply spiritual principles to achieve success in all areas of your life. Being spiritual to me includes this love of being one with nature.
Practice Self-Care and Seek Help When Needed (Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy, The Power of Full Engagement, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up): Take care of your mental health and seek professional help when needed. Even if you’re not actively going to a therapist, you need to release and rejuvenate energy with friends.
Embrace Your Individuality and Uniqueness (On Being Awesome, Embrace Your Weird, Quiet: The Power of Introverts): Celebrate your individuality and understand the strengths of different personality types. I’m totally leaning into this obsession with AI.
Learn from the Past and Plan for the Future (The Road Less Traveled, Regret Minimization, Prospective Retrospection): Use past experiences and future goals for personal growth and decision-making. Explicitly mapping out mistakes and writing out your values for the future can be super helpful in making a plan.
Cultivate Resilience and Perseverance (The Stoic Challenge, The Obstacle is the Way, The Growth Mindset): Develop resilience and perseverance in the face of challenges. I love Angela Duckworth’s TED talk on Grit. Solve hard problems.
Practice Effective Communication and Understanding (How to Win Friends and Influence People, The Five Love Languages, The Four Agreements): Improve your communication skills and strive to understand others. I thrive by coming up with ways to describe strategies at work – lots of slides and recordings that you can play at 1.2x speed. Perhaps I need to make more slides for Vinessa.
Cultivate a Success Mindset (Think and Grow Rich, The Magic of Thinking Big, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success): Develop a mindset that fosters success and achievement. This is a bit of a repeat for the positive thinking, but a mindset can be deeply different from pure meditation.
Cultivate Healthy Habits and Routines (The Power of Habit, The Compound Effect, The Miracle Morning): Develop and maintain healthy habits for personal and professional success. My daily live is 90% habit. I just start a sub routine and enjoy the process. It’s kind of like a Sims game.
Learn the Art of Negotiation (Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss): Develop effective negotiation skills that can be applied in various aspects of life. Even though I’m terrible at haggling, I think it’s important to know your self worth and be able to ask for a good deal.
Understand the Role of Luck and Chance (Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Nicholas Taleb): Recognize the role of luck and random events in our lives and make decisions accordingly. Things are not as good or bad as they seem.
Learn to Say No (Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown): Understand the importance of saying no. It’s sometimes what you don’t do that defines you. I also always say “learn to do less, but do those fewer things much better.”
Cultivate a Money Mindset (Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki): Develop a positive relationship with money and understand the principles of financial literacy. There’s tons of financial self help (especially with all these youtube video recommendations of how to get rich quick).
Learn to Deal with Difficult People (Dealing with People You Can’t Stand by Rick Brinkman and Rick Kirschner): Develop strategies for handling challenging individuals and situations. As a person that avoids conflict with people, this is definitely a good skill to learn.
Understand the Science of Happiness (The How of Happiness by Sonja Lyubomirsky): Learn about the research-backed strategies for increasing happiness in your life. The key to happiness is to forget about it and live in a state of Joyfulness. Happiness is fleeting. Joy is a state of mind.
Master the Art of Learning (The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin): Learn how to master new skills and knowledge effectively and efficiently. This is probably the most important part about being nimble – keep learning and applying new tools towards achieving your personal goals.
~See Lemons Help Itself
Originally posted on seelemons.com