Living For Improvement
Lifestyle Concepts That Work
One of my best friends has been going through some tough times lately. He’s explored many career paths and none seemed to deliver the sense of fulfillment he’s been looking for in a career. After speaking with him about his situation, I wondered: What if my friend was suffering from the passion trap? In other words, was the idea of having a one, true passion interfering with his ability to stick to a career path long term? To remedy this, I proposed an idea, which I will refer to as the Eight-Year Rule.
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Last weekend I attended my alma mater’s alumni homecoming weekend. As part of this weekend, I signed up for a mentoring event within the business school. I was told that I could give a small presentation on a topic that the participating students would find valuable, and I was told I could choose one of a few different topics. The choices were “Networking Made Easy”, “Interviewing Tips”, or “Women in the Business World.” Obviously, I’m a little unqualified to speak about one of these topics, so it was a choice between interviewing and networking. Ultimately, I chose to speak about networking because of how pivotal it was for me finding my current job. Without the ridiculous amount of networking I did, I’d probably still be unemployed.
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Does Hypnosis Work? A Resounding Yes is in Order
In: Overcoming Fear
5 Sep 2011
After a few months of working with hypnosis, I have a new view on the subject. I used to have this very polarized idea of how hypnosis worked. Either you were incredibly susceptible to it (and could be hypnotized to think you were a chicken on stage), or it had no effect on you. I no longer believe this to be the case.
Hypnosis, for therapeutic purposes, is essentially a guided meditation with positive affirmations being spoken to you. Some people can go into a state that is deeper than meditation, but I am the type who has trouble relaxing to that extent. So basically, you’re relaxing your mind through meditation to slow down that whir of thoughts that are always going through your head. Once this happens, your mind is less likely to criticize and scrutinize the contents of the hypnosis tape, allowing them to do their job better. That’s it. It’s really nothing too far-fetched.
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Goals, Sacrifices, and Expectations: How They Can Make You Happy (or Miserable)
In: Happiness
14 Aug 2011
What’s not to like about setting goals? It motivates you, keeps you accountable for your accomplishments, and helps you gradually shape your life into that of your ideal. Trying to be successful without goals is tantamount to driving with a destination.
There are hundreds, if not thousands, of self help resources out there that help you with setting goals. Almost all of them will ask you about your dreams, ambitions, passions, skills, talents, strengths, weaknesses, and/or desired income. Some of the better ones will ask you about your risk tolerance, force you to prioritize, and help make the case for high risk, high reward. And finally, ONLY ONE resource that I’ve come across discusses the sacrificial nature of goal setting. I’m not sure if sacrifice is a taboo in the self help industry or if it’s just a poor marketing decision for an author to parade this idea around in his/her book, since it doesn’t lend to the good feelings generated by the ‘anything is possible!’ philosophy. So I’ll do my best to fill you in on what I mean by the sacrificial nature of goal setting.
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I'm Jon Guerrera, the man behind the scenes here at Living For Improvement. I'm a life hacker at heart and currently working at a tech start-up in NYC. This blog documents all of my successes, failures, experiments and lessons learned as I hack my way to happiness, fulfillment and success.
I also wrote an ebook. If you like what I write on the blog, you should definitely check it out below. Oh, and it's free.
Unlimited Drive is the result of four years of diligent research on what drives people to achieve great things. I always wondered how the most successful people in the world could reach such high levels of success and accomplishment. Well, I found the answer and wrote an ebook so I could pass it on to you (for free).
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Should Your Focus on Your Strengths or Weaknesses?
You Create Your Own Reality: Here's How
The Top 5 Lessons I Wish I Knew as a Freshman in College
Shaping Your Life After Graduation: A Guide for College Students
On Optimizing Your Results From Personal Growth and Development Resources
On Maintaining Peak Performance During Times of High Stress
Why You Need to Fail to Succeed
- How to Gamify Your Life: An Experiment – Part 4
- How to Gamify Your Life: An Experiment – Part 3
- How to Gamify Your Life: An Experiment – Part 2
- How to Gamify Your Life: An Experiment – Part 1
- Using Expectations to Find Happiness: The Eight-Year Rule
- Networking Made Easy? How to Be the Student Everyone Wants to Hire
- Does Hypnosis Work? A Resounding Yes is in Order
- Goals, Sacrifices, and Expectations: How They Can Make You Happy (or Miserable)
- If Only…
- Why You Should Embrace Your Insecurities
