This is Optimal Living Daily episode 1160, Getting Better All The Time by Tynan of Tynan.com and I'm Justin Mollick, your personal narrator, the guy that reads you every single day of the year, kind of like an ongoing audiobook but free. For now let's get right to it as we optimize your life. Getting Better All The Time by Tynan of Tynan.com I think and hope that regular readers of my blog will appreciate the variety of posts I throw up, random stories, travel tips, big life ideas, etc. I live a happy and fulfilling life, and the idea is that if I make my ideas and thought processes public over the long term, people can take bits and pieces to improve their lives just as I've done from other people.
This has proven to be successful on some scale, but two-thirds of the visits my site guests are from first-time visitors. They search on Google, follow a link on Twitter, or were emailed an article by a friend. They don't get repeated exposure but rather a single shot. And if I'm honest about it, a post like the one titled Yuka probably isn't going to improve their lives other than to offer a few moments of entertainment.
This set of circumstances leaves me thinking about what major themes run through my philosophy that can make an impact in a single post. Last night as I slept in a chilly tent with no electricity, no light, and no internet, I kept coming back to the idea of always getting better. I think the phrase in and of itself is cliche and meaningless, but maybe what I mean by it and the resulting actions aren't. Most people don't get better all the time.
They get adequate and then stop. They subconsciously decide at how many things they must develop a level of proficiency, and then they get proficient. So you end up with a guy who's good at accounting, can cook fish okay, but sucks at having a conversation with his waiter. Or the guy who can schmooze a party but can't balance his checkbook or swing a hammer.
It's subsistence level skill acquisition. For whatever reason, I've been wired the opposite way. I want to find all of my flaws and conquer them. I want to learn everything.
When I encounter people who don't feel the same way as I often do, I secretly wonder how they can stand it. How does the guy with a ridiculous temper not fix that? Does he not realize he has a temper? Does he not care?
Does he not know how to change? Or what about my friend who has completely given up on ever having a girlfriend again? He obviously knows that it's a fixable problem, but he hasn't taken the first step towards actually fixing it. I can't tell you how many times I've been on the sending and receiving end of sentences like, dude, you're being a complete idiot.
You need to do blank and tighten up your life. The funny part is that we all relish that sort of feedback. In fact, as likely as I am to share my successes with my friends, I'm probably more likely to tell them when I screwed up. They offer me a suggestion to do better next time, or at least motivate me by agreeing that doing blank was dumb.
That's a long way of saying this. You have to be willing to know you suck at something before you're able to improve. The more willing you are to face your weaknesses, the less likely they are to remain weaknesses. The goal is to get better all the time, not to be perfect at everything.
There's a difference. The former describes the process which is always under your control, while the latter describes the outcome that you have only a hand in. The fact that you're somewhere on the road to being a champion is important, not which mile marker you're walking past. People tend to do self-improvement for a specific purpose.
They want to lose weight for their wedding, learn pick-up so that they can have a girlfriend, or meditate to reduce stress. That's fine, but it's better to embrace it as a way of life, to enjoy getting better because you know that the process is worthwhile. The unexpected benefits of each improvement are unpredictable and generally outweigh the reason you decided to improve to begin with. Sure, you'll look great in your wedding photos if you lose weight, but maybe you'll also live longer and be able to enjoy more physical hobbies, and will set a good example for your future children.
Learning pick-up might snag you a girlfriend, but speaking from personal experience, it can also make you more confident, outgoing, and appreciative of other people. Meditation can lower your stress, and aside from that, it can make you more focused and serene. It's the lifestyle of getting better all the time that provides the real rewards. If you can believe all this and embrace it, your life can start to look different.
Last week I sat in front of my computer and realized that I'd fallen off the productivity train. I was getting the bare minimum done on my projects. So rather than wallow in pity, be mad at myself for failing, try to justify my sloth or any of the many other things I could have done, I smiled. I saw it as an opportunity to get better at something.
I value these opportunities more than anything. I closed down the waste of time sites I was browsing, and I opened up my code editor. I spent the next few hours building out some features on my project that needed to get done, and then I did the same thing next day. I don't think that my current level of productivity is going to become a new baseline.
I don't think I'm instantly the most productive person in the world. I know I'll fall off the train again, and just as I've done a dozen times before, hop back on. I'm just happy to have found an opportunity to improve myself, to have seized it, and to have left a little better than I was before. It's all part of the journey.
You just listened to the post titled Getting Better All the Time by Tynan of Tynan.com. I will leave it there for today. Hope you have a great middle of the week if you're listening in real time, and I'll see you back here tomorrow, where your optimal life awaits.