STRATEGIES FOR LEARNING HOW TO BUILD CONFIDENCE

Practice makes perfect when it comes to learning how to build confidence. Employ the following strategies to believe in yourself in any situation. 

1. USE CONFIDENT BODY LANGUAGE

Even if you don’t feel confident all the time, you can appear confident when needed by adjusting your body language. Research suggests that, when you project confidence through your actions, the degree to which you “feel” those actions makes the confidence feel real, too. To put this principle into action, tell yourself you’re capable of achieving your goal. Then feel the feeling of confidence you’re projecting. With practice, building confidence becomes natural. 

2. DEVELOP WORKPLACE CONFIDENCE

Learning how to build confidence is pivotal to succeeding in your career. Whether you’re in marketing, management or another role, you must be able to communicate with self-assurance. Sales strategies are effective confidence-builders in any field. Achieve large success by building confidence with these proven sales strategies.

3. EMBRACE A GROWTH MINDSET

Discovering self-confidence requires consistent action and thought. When you’re overcoming your self-doubt, having a growth mindset is key. When you view your challenges as opportunities, you’re able to approach them with assurance. You begin to view setbacks as progress, so they become part of mastering how to build confidence. 

4. PRACTICE POSITIVE THINKING

Feeling confident starts from within with positive thinking. When you’re building confidence, learn how to reframe your mindset to start thinking more positively and feel more self-assured as a result. We’re not talking about wearing rose-colored glasses – we’re talking about having a realistic sense of your capabilities. When you build a habit of positive self-talk, you’re able to view setbacks as stepping stones to success. 

5. LET GO OF THE NEED FOR CONTROL

When you’re focused on retaining a sense of control in life, it actually reduces your confidence. Nothing in life is truly within our control. By letting go, you’re able to accept circumstances as-is, which is a powerful component of learning how to build confidence. Learn how to recognize your need for control. Take steps toward letting go and finding a true sense of contentment and confidence in life. 

6. ACCEPT YOURSELF

When you’re learning how to build confidence, it’s tempting to focus on your “ideal self” – the person you wish you were, a superhero who never experiences fear, doubt or shame. While managing negative emotions is certainly part of building confidence, shutting down your feelings doesn’t help. Accept yourself as you are in any emotional state. When you accept yourself unconditionally, you’re able to look at your feelings objectively and appreciate what they teach you about yourself. 

7. TREAT OTHERS WITH RESPECT AND COMPASSION

When it comes to building confidence, how you treat others is as important as how you treat yourself. When you practice “soft skills” like respect, compassion, empathy and deep listening, you build rapport with others. When you feel good about your relationships, you’re mastering how to gain confidence with every interaction you have.

8. APPRECIATE YOUR VALUES AND LIVE BY THEM

Part of the problem with self-doubt is that you begin to doubt the core of who you are – the values that inspire you and guide your decisions. To truly learn how to build confidence, take pride in your values. They make you uniquely you. And when you make value-driven choices, there’s no room for doubt. You’re living up to your own standards, and that’s the definition of an extraordinary life filled with passion and purpose. 

How small actions lead to big results.

To reach your goals, you need a system. You need to build habits and you have to stick around long enough to let them do their magic. You hear it over and over again because it’s true.In 2019, one of the most popular books was Atomic Habits, by James Clear. It’s a practical guide to break bad habits and build good ones. The author explains clearly why small, everyday habits lead to great success.

If you haven’t read the book yet, make sure you do. But don’t just read it. Put in practice everything you learn from it. Until you do so, here are 9 micro-habits that can improve your life.

1. Delay Your Reactions

I know, I know, it’s a fast-moving world. But that does not mean we have to respond quickly to everything. Learn to say “I’ll let you know later”, “I’ll get back to you on this”, and other similar phrases.

Instead of saying yes to an offer only to realize later that it doesn’t fit your schedule, better to take a few minutes to think about it.It will save you a great amount of time and disappointment in the long run.

2. Push Yourself to Complete a Task When You Don’t Feel Like It

Every day, pick a small task you don’t want to do then go ahead and complete it. From washing the dishes to making your bed and from going for a run to making dinner instead of ordering food. It can be anything.

After doing this for a few days, you’ll realize the problem is not the task itself. It’s your habit of postponing things. It’s being comfortable, especially when you have a choice. But often, once you make the first step, you get yourself in the mood and get the job done.Once you’ve spent a few days completing small tasks, make the jump to bigger ones.

3. Spend a Day Away From Social Media

There were days when my phone was the extension of my hand. I would pick it up for no reason and then scroll on social media for 30 minutes without realizing it. And I’m not even big on social media platforms. I never post anything on Facebook and have around 200 followers on Instagram, whom I spam with pictures of my travels from time to time.

But I can’t give it up for good, nor do I want to. Facebook is a great way to find out about local events, and Instagram is a great source of inspiration for my writing. But all of these are useful if I use the platforms in moderation.So instead of deleting the apps from my phone, I’ve decided that I’m not going to use them on Sundays. And so I did. After four weeks, I’ve drastically reduced my screen time and even set a 1-hour limit for social apps.So if you’re struggling with this as well, start small. Spend a day away from social media or don’t connect your phone to wifi at all. After you realize you’re not missing out on anything, by being offline for one day, you’ll consciously choose to spend less time online, every day.

4. Prepare Your Next Day the Night Before

Choose your outfit and put everything in your bag (men might not understand this, but most women have a looong list of things that they need to have in their everyday bag).Write down a to-do list and check your calendar to see if you scheduled any meetings or calls. Do anything you can to make the next day easier.If you have a plan, you get things done faster. There’s no magic involved, it’s pure logic.

5. Eat Mindfully

When you’re eating and working/reading/watching a movie at the same time, you often eat more than you need. Plus, you’re not enjoying the food, nor are you being productive. Can you even taste those vegetables if you’re busy trying to make sense of an excel document? Probably not.

Having lunch or dinner shouldn’t take more than 10–15 minutes. So when did we become so busy that we don’t even have 10 minutes to spare to fuel our bodies?Next time you eat, do just that: eat. You’ll see it’s not easy at all to not reach for your phone. And the simple fact that we have to talk ourselves out of doing it should raise some questions.

6 Use a Timer for Your Tasks

The Pomodoro Technique might as well be called the Bible of Productivity. It got so famous because it works so it does deserve all the praise. Out of all the micro-habits I mention here, this one has helped me the most.

Working and traveling full-time is not always easy (or fun, might I add) and you have to come up with a schedule and stick to it. So I’ve adjusted the Pomodoro Technique in a way that works for me: I write for one hour, take a 10-minute break, and then write for another hour.This is one of the main tricks that have helped meet my deadlines while exploring a few different cities every month.

7. Place Your Phone on the Opposite Side of the Room

If you keep your phone next to you when you sleep, you’ll just keep hitting the snooze button until it’s almost too late to get out of bed. But for most of us, the hard part is standing up, not waking up. And this is why this method works.

When your phone is on the opposite side of the room, you have to get up and take a few steps to stop it from ringing. Then you might realize you are also thirsty and have a lot to do in the next following hours. So your bed doesn’t look so comfortable anymore.

8. Write Down Every Idea

“It’s ok, I’ll remember it” should go down in history as the biggest lie we tell ourselves. Out of all the things you pick up during the day, you end up forgetting more than half of it.

So make a habit of writing everything down, even the silly stuff that seem unimportant.

I finished “How to Make Sense of Any Mess” by Abby Covert today (it took me about 4 hours total to read, including making extensive notes). Being honest, the book is so short and to the point that no review can present its ideas in a briefer or more brilliant way than Abby herself does. So I am not even going to try. I just wanted to follow up with some of my thoughts before they get completely dissolved into the mess (ha, ha) that is my memory and I forget where those ideas originated from.

The book is positioned as “information architecture for everyone” — and it is. But one does not have to be an information architect to make good use of this book. Anyone can benefit from it, because information is all around us, we deal with it daily, and we do organise it in some ways whether we are paying attention to it or not; even no organisation is a form of organisation.

So, to avoid information piling up and creating messes, it’s better to learn the ways we can make sense of it. And this was exactly the reason I picked up this book — to learn all those ways. Here are the ideas I got out of it & ways I am going to implement those ideas in my work:

1. Anything can be a mess, and a mess can be any thing.

But that is not a bad thing at all. It actually means that anything can be made sense of. Which is great.

How to implement: Identify the mess(es) in your process, acknowledge them, and make a decision to deal with them. Do not be afraid. Being in denial about the mess or refusing to face it only leads to the mess growing bigger, stronger & meaner. The earlier you begin, the easier it will be to sort through things. Because no matter how difficult it is (or seems to be), any mess can be made sense of. You will just need some time and (maybe) a little bit of help.

2. Choosing your language is a part of building your product.

As a company, personal brand, writer, artist, creator, or anyone with any audience/user base whatsoever, you have to pay attention to your vocabulary and your language. Choose the words that describe you. See what other words they make you walk away from. If you want to be “simple”, it means you cannot be “complex”; if you want to be “down to Earth”, you cannot be “elite”.

How to implement: If you already have your brand’s mission, values, philosophy or anything of the sort, this is a great place to start. Sit down and analyse those sacred texts, and/or invite the team along for a brainstorm session. Select the adjectives which describe your brand or which you want your users to describe it with. Make a list. Build the list of the opposites (things you should NOT be). Stick to those two lists and keep coming back to them to check if you are staying true to your preferred adjectives.

3. Great Information Architecture is invisible.

This has been said before, but it is worth saying again (for those in the back): when Information Architecture is implemented well, it becomes transparent. You only notice IA when it is done poorly.

How to implement: Build. Test. Fail. Fix. Implement. Fail again. Fail better. Maybe perfection is not attainable. But what you want is for your users to enjoy your product as seamlessly as possible, without having to spend any extra time trying to locate some specific part of it they really need but don’t know where to find.

4. If there is a space your users can go to, they will go there.

Even if you didn’t intend them to. Identify & locate those spaces. Build pathways through the mud.

How to implement: Build as many user flows as you can. Do moderated and/or recorded tests. See where users can end up unexpectedly. Where they might get lost, because there is no pathway built for them there. If there is a way for them to go to a place they are not supposed to go to, you can trust them to do so.

5. Not everyone is, or wants to be, or should be an Information Architect. But anyone can be a Sensemaker.

Maybe Information Architecture is just too much for you to bear. You have plenty of tasks on your hands as it is, and your current position is far from being related to all that jazz. That is totally fine. You can still fight the messes around you and make sense of them.

How to implement: This book is not at all centered on fighting messes while building digital products (such as websites or apps) — it is just a lense I present it through, because I myself am building those products. But remember p.1 — any thing can be a mess, and therefore any thing can be made sense of. Your apartment, your time management, your personal projects, your relationship with your client(s), your brand’s physical products. Whatever it is, if there is a mess, you can make sense of it. I recommend you consult this brilliant little book by Abby to find more ways of how to do so.

You may be sitting in the airport waiting to board and see airline employees donning reflective vests and looking harried, while communicating via walkie-talkie, but have no clue what it means (including whether something might be wrong with your plane). You might order a cup of coffee or tea on your flight, ignorant to the fact that it could be crawling with bacteria. You might even be sitting near a dead person , and never even know it.

Ahead, six freaky things airlines don’t tell passengers that might surprise you.

1. Don’t consume coffee, tea, or prepared food on board.
The water sourced for in-flight hot beverages comes from tanks that are hard to clean and have a higher likelihood of bacteria and other contaminants. In other words, steer clear of anything that requires tap water — coffee, tea, etc. — and drink only bottled water. Also, don’t eat the food on board unless it comes in a sealed bag from a specific brand. LSG Sky Chefs, one of the largest contractors providing meals to airlines, frequently gets slapped with health violations, and the conditions under which it prepares food are often less than savory. (Of course, that doesn’t go for all airlines, as some international carriers, like Emirates and Singapore, are known for their excellent food.)

2. Airlines retire numbers that are bad luck.
The majority of airline employees, especially pilots, are the most level-headed, pragmatic people you’ll ever meet. But they also tend to be incredibly superstitious about certain things. That’s probably why flight numbers go into retirement once they’re associated with a negative incident. Among the grounded numbers of routes past are American Airlines flight 77, which crashed on 9/11; Malaysian Airlines 370, which disappeared over the China Sea last year; and Pan Am flight 103, which came down en route from Frankfurt to Detroit, in an incident now known simply as Lockerbie, the village where the plane crashed following an explosion.

3. Think twice before using the seat-back tray.
That seat-back tray you eagerly lower for beverage or snack service or to rest your laptop on may come with some unwanted surprises. Like, say, fecal matter. Passengers often use the trays as their own private diaper changing tables, and sadly, they are cleaned far less than you’d be comforted to know. Next time you fly, bring antibacterial wipes for the seat-back tray before you touch it, let alone eat off of it.

4. No one seat is safer than any other.
There’s an ongoing debate about where to sit on a plane to increase your odds of surviving a plane crash. Analyses have even shown that, on average, more people have survived sitting toward the back of the plane behind the wing than in the front. But if you ask any industry professional, they’ll tell you something different. If the plane is nose-diving from 30,000 feet over the Atlantic Ocean, sorry, but you’re out of luck no matter where you sit. If the mid or back sections of the plane are ground zero for impact, sitting in the back actually puts you in harm’s way more than say, if you’re in the cockpit. Airplane crashes are incredibly rare, but your chances of survival will depend on the circumstances of the emergency.

5. Virtually every plane has something wrong with it.
Much like how you may know that your car is due for an oil change but make a calculated decision to wait until next week to deal with it, airplanes have routine scheduled maintenance, and certain problems might not be dealt with until that time. The formula that determines whether and when a problem is addressed takes into account both severity and risk, whether there are backup systems for that functionality, and when the plane is scheduled for maintenance (or to land at an airport where the airline has the capacity, parts, and people to fix it). But don’t worry: If it’s a big enough problem that it poses a real threat to safety, they will take the aircraft out of service for repairs.

6. Gross things happen on planes all the time.
Life happens — and for some reason, it seems to happen more intensely on airplanes. Blame it on the altitude, but people tend to do crazy things when they’re flying.  they drink cheap chardonnay on a 6 a.m. flight to Fort Lauderdale and barf all over the place (in fact, seats are the most swapped-out equipment on planes). And people bite the dust mid-flight more often than you might think (usually it’s older people with heart conditions). When someone dies in-flight, a plane will often divert to the nearest city, but sometimes, people slip away so quietly that no one notices until they don’t get up from their seats upon landing. Spooky.

Before there were books, universities, or classes, there were mentorships to pass on wisdom and knowledge. In the west, mentorships exist since the Ancient Greek times—it’s a tried method of learning. That’s why a lot of people try to find a mentor. Sometimes people mix up apprenticeships and mentorships. An apprenticeship is basically an internship, which is a system that was created in the Middle Ages. If you wanted to become a tailor, baker, or merchant, you became an apprentice first and learned the craft on the job.

The main difference between the two is that mentorships are informal. And that’s exactly what makes it difficult to find a mentor. There are also several other people that I speak to every once in a while — we exchange ideas, and share knowledge—they are also like mentors. So mentors come in many types of relationships.

Here are seven things I learned about finding a mentor.

1. Become A Learning Machine

Before you start thinking about finding a mentor, you want to think about two things:

• What’s your field?
• What can you bring to the table?

It’s astonishing to me that people want to find a mentor without any sense of direction. For example: If you want to work in sports, it doesn’t make sense to find a mentor who’s in art (unless you want to bring art to sports).If you’re looking for someone who grabs you by the hand and tells you about life, you don’t need a mentor — you need experience. And you only get experience by doing things. You can’t expect that people hand you everything — that’s not what a mentor does.

First, decide what industry you want to work in. Second, study that industry. Before you find real-life mentors, your mentors are books, degrees, courses ,YouTube videos, or any other source of knowledge. You need basic knowledge of life and your field if you want to find a mentor. No one’s waiting for a puppy that they have to raise. It’s important to bring something to the table before you approach potential mentors.

2. Work On Your Emotional Intelligence

Because of the informal nature of mentorships, you need emotional intelligence if you want to find a mentor. Emotional intelligence can be defined in many ways, and my definition is this: Don’t be annoying. If you have found a mentor, you will spend time with her — and because it’s informal, it all comes down to likeability.

Likeability is also something that some companies stress during interviews. Because they know they will spend a lot of time with people who join their company, they ask themselves a version of this question: “Would I hang out with this person?” If you don’t want to be annoying, here are some tips:

• Don’t try to be someone you are not
• Don’t think you know it all
• Be honest and humble
• Don’t try too hard
• Tell stories

3. Don’t Ask

Let’s get down to the practicality. If there’s some you look up to, and you want to learn from, it’s time to approach her. You can find people who could mentor you everywhere. Don’t just think of influential people — look in your family, the family of your friends, friends of your friends, etc. Look close. That will make it easier to connect. But you don’t call or email someone and say: “Will you be my mentor?” People will probably think you’re delusional. Most people don’t mind helping others, but it also can’t be a one-way street.

If you’re contacting someone for the first time, try to keep it short and simple. You can ask a simple question, or give them praise. You don’t want ask for anything big. Also, please don’t email people and offer them coffee in exchange for free advice. Anyone can buy coffee, but not everyone actually can bring something valuable to the table. You have to be compelling for someone to spend time with you.

4. Add Value

When the other person responds to you, start thinking about adding value to them. You can do that by researching them or their company. And if you want to add value, you need #1 on this list. You can’t add much value if you don’t have knowledge or experience. Offer them help, create something, give them ideas, anything — be proactive.

5. Be Mindful Of The Other Person’s Time

Always keep in mind that the other person doesn’t owe you anything and never will. You’re looking for a mutual relationship. If you ever want to set up a meeting, do it whenever they have time and wherever they are. It shows that you’re serious about learning, will do whatever it takes, and most importantly; that you have emotional intelligence.

6. Take Your Craft Seriously

If you’re approaching someone who’s successful in what they do, it’s very likely that they take their job seriously. You want to meet them with the same intensity and passion (also, don’t fake it or try to find a mentor so you can tell others about it). One of my mentors told me early on: “I meet a lot of annoying, negative, people who just work to get a paycheck. What’s the fun of being around those people?”

It might seem like a fair assumption that everybody takes their job seriously, but that’s not always the case. However, if you do take your craft seriously, that can be very infectious.

7. Stay In Touch

Because you don’t ask people to become your mentor, you want to put it differently. If you can tell that they enjoyed meeting with you, you can say: “This was very useful. If you feel the same, do you want to make this a recurring thing?” Be prepared to hear a no when you try to find a mentor. Some people might be busy or focused on a project. Take it graciously and say you understand, but don’t go into hiding. Try to send them relevant things in the future. Finally, when it comes to frequency: I speak to my mentors every 2–3 months. And in between meetings we sometimes exchange emails — for things like book recommendations, articles, or questions.

Unless you have the opportunity to work together on a frequent basis, you don’t need to meet your mentor every week because you want to take their advice and apply it. So give it some time. But try to keep the momentum by staying in touch via email or text messages

Finding a mentor is a not a formal thing, so don’t treat it like one. Mentorship is like friendship, and that’s what your mentor eventually becomes: Your friend, always keep that in mind.

We all thought this was a temporary thing. But here we are. People are already calling this the “COVID era” as if they are reading about it in a history book. But we’re still going through it. For most of my friends and family, the social distancing and handwashing aren’t that bad. We got used to that stuff quickly. The tough part about this era is that life has changed permanently for many folks. 

Rifts are created between people with different beliefs on wearing a mask. Complete industries are swept away and will probably never be the same. The world has truly changed. In this article, I’m sharing certain lessons I’ve learned from observing all these changes. Hopefully, these short reminders will make life during this era easier for all of us.

1. It’s hard on everybody
   I know your life is hard. But so is the life of your neighbor. That puts us all in the same boat. So go easy on yourself and others.
2. Nothing is forever
   It seems like this will last forever. But everything dies. And so will pandemics.
3. Accept it as if you chose this
   This is the only form of useful lying in the world. Trick yourself into believing you wanted a more tranquil and solitary life.Simply accept everything that’s outside of your control as something you wanted. Life will be a lot rosier.
4. Make the best of your time
   Accepting circumstances doesn’t mean we give up. Make the best of it. To be clear: Worrying and thinking about stuff that’s outside of your control is NOT a good use of your time.
5. Take a breather
   Literally. Take a moment for yourself and breeeeath…. Aaaah. Yes, that’s the feeling.
6. Exercise every day
   Stay in shape. If you’re not injured or ill, it’s your duty to take care of your body. Never take this lightly. 
7. Get off social media
   It’s a waste of your time. “Always?” Pretty much.
8. Read books
   This is a better use of your time. We all have reading lists with hundreds of books on them. And we’re not going to live 200 years. That means you need to make some tough choices. Which books will you read before you die?
9. Learn new skills
   Technology is improving and changing so fast that we’re not aware what’s going on. We just learn it after the fact. But that’s too late. So stay on top of your field and keep learning new skills you need to do good work.
10. Keep a daily journal
    This will probably be one of the weirdest times of our lives. Don’t you want to document this? Even if you never read it again, it’s still worth writing because it makes you a better thinker. 
11. Inspiration comes from within
    “I need to go to Paris for inspiration.” Replace Paris with any city or place in the world. Why do we think inspiration comes from the outside? Look inside!
12. Good food improves your mood
    One of the few pleasures that you never get used to. Research new recipes, be creative, and cook food that makes you go, “Hmmmmnn.”
13. Objects will not make you happy -I had to tell myself that after a few too many useless purchases.
14. More money is not the answer
    Look, I’m not going to lie. Having a little bit of money will lighten the load. So start that online business or side-gig you’ve been thinking about. But don’t expect that money will make you happy. It just solves your money problems. Nothing else.
15. Do work you enjoy
    Just because you need to survive, don’t say yes to the first available job you encounter. And also don’t start some kind of soulless online business so you can make a few bucks. Find something you enjoy and pays the bills. 
16. Appreciate what you have
    The grass is always greener. We tend to forget. So here’s a reminder: If you’re reading this on your smartphone in the comfort of your house, your life isn’t so bad. 
17. Give back
    Do something altruistic. Talk to your elderly neighbors, hold the door for someone, share your hard-earned lessons with others. Small things that have a positive impact on people.
18. Change is good
    This is a difficult period if your industry got swept away. But remember, change is a part of life. And in the long-term, it’s good. We just don’t see the sunshine when we’re going through a storm. 
19. Stop consuming—Start creating -The world never changed for the better by doing nothing. Right now, our biggest challenge is paralysis by consumption. We’re over-consuming everything: News, food, clothes, entertainment, you name it.

To get through this era, we need more action. So stop sitting there and go create something. Without creation, there’s no progress.

Mastery is never an accident. You can win the lottery and become rich overnight, but no one has ever mastered their craft by chance. Whether we are talking about athletes, artists, or academics, the story is the same. If you want to fulfill your potential then you must practice a specific skill for long time with remarkable consistency.

Somehow, top performers in any craft figure out a way to fall in the love of boredom, put in their reps, and do the work.

Of course, whenever “experts” share stories about successful people they often leave out a key ingredient of the story. How, exactly, do top performers fall in love with boredom? Perhaps more important, how can you fall in love with boredom when you’re trying to build a habit that you know you should do, but you don’t really want to do.

Let me share two strategies that work for me.

How to Fall in Love With Boredom

First, there is very little hope for falling in love with a habit that you truly hate. I don’t know anyone who legitimately dislikes an activity and somehow falls in love with doing it. It doesn’t add up. It’s very difficult to hate something and be in love with it at the same time. (Your ex doesn’t count.)

Let’s say you dislike working out, but you know it’s good for you.

Option 1: Increase your proficiency at the task.

Even tasks that you are good at will feel monotonous some days, so imagine the uphill battle you’re fighting if you are constantly trying to do something that you don’t feel skilled at. The solution? Learn the basic fundamentals of your task and celebrate the small wins and improvements you make. With our workout example, let’s say you purchase starting strength and learn how to do a proper deadlift or bench press. Practicing these new skills in the gym can be fun and making tiny improvements each week builds momentum. It’s much easier to fall in love with doing something over and over again if you can look forward to making progress.

Option 2: Fall in love with a result of the task rather than the task itself.

Let’s be real: there are some things that we should do that are always going to be a hassle. Running sprints might be an example. Very few people look forward to setting their lungs on fire.

I find that I have more success in situations like these when I shift my focus away from the actual task and toward a result. Sometimes this is a direct result of the habit I’m trying to perform. Other times, it’s a result that I invent. For example, you can make a game out of not missing workouts even if you don’t enjoy the workout itself. Let’s say you have done two sprint workouts in a row. . You’re not worried about how you perform. You’re not worried about if you’re getting faster. You’re not worried about getting six-pack abs or any other type of result. For the most part, you’re not even thinking about the workout. Instead, you’re simply focused on keeping your workout streak alive.

The Power of Patience

I was speaking with a friend at the gym recently. He had decided to change his weightlifting routine despite making good progress with his old program. I asked him why. He made a few excuses before eventually saying, “Basically, I got bored.”

It has taken me years to learn this lesson myself, but I’m starting to believe that a beautiful blend of patience and consistency is the ultimate competitive advantage. Success is often found by practicing the fundamentals that everyone knows they should be doing, but they find too boring or basic to practice routinely.

It’s easy to spend all day searching for inspiration. You can find incredible videos, articles, and news stories, and email them out to all of your friends. But the best (and longest lasting) type of inspiration comes from applying those outside bits of motivation to your own goals.

Make no mistake: it’s important to be a learner. Successful people in all fields soak up new information. They find inspiration and motivation in the work and success of others.

But here’s the problem: consuming the success and ideas of others is passive inspiration. Every time you watch a video, read an article, or listen to an interview, you’re practicing passive inspiration. You might learn something, but you don’t actually have to do anything. Hearing about other people’s success isn’t the same thing as creating your own.

Instead, it is through the process of active inspiration — the act of creating things, applying new ideas to our goals, and making mistakes — that we discover who we are and what is important to us. Furthermore, active inspiration is what results in long—term passion and enthusiasm. Watching someone else’s success might leave you feeling excited for a few minutes, but taking action and applying a new idea to your life will inspire you more than anything someone else could say.

Learning and listening can help you think about things in a different way, but creating, producing, and experimenting is what propels you forward. Passive inspiration can give you ideas, but active inspiration will give you momentum.

The Best Inspiration is Application

The inspiration is not the receiving of information. The inspiration is applying what you’ve received.
—Derek Sivers

If you come across a good idea, use it. We spend so much time trying to find more inspirational things to consume that it can be easy for us to forget that the best form of inspiration comes from what we create.

It’s about stumbling across a brilliant idea and bringing it to life in your work. It’s about finding a new strategy and applying it your own goals. It’s about learning a new exercise and adding it to your workout. The application of ideas will always be more powerful than the ideas themselves.

Too often we spend our lives consuming the world around us instead of creating it. Sure, there is some motivation in other people’s ideas, but don’t forget about the power your actions have to inspire you. The best inspiration comes from the application of ideas, not the consumption of them.

The Difference Between Professionals and Amateurs

It doesn’t matter what you are trying to become better at, if you only do the work when you’re motivated, then you’ll never be consistent enough to become a professional.

The ability to show up everyday, stick to the schedule, and do the work — especially when you don’t feel like it — is so valuable that it is literally all you need to become better 99% of the time.

I’ve seen this in various experiences of mine…..

When I don’t miss workouts, I get in the best shape of my life. When I write every week, I become a better writer. When I travel and take my camera out every day, I take better photos.

It’s simple and powerful.