Insight Synthesis

What you do is your own choice. Nobody can force you to do anything. People can have an influence on you, but so can anything. Filter out things you feel will influence you into doing something for which you won’t accept responsibility.

Things don’t have to suck. Our memories, opinions, beliefs and thoughts label everything good or bad. We choose how to feel. This means that things suck because we choose to believe they suck. See above.

There’s no such thing as multitasking. It takes your brain a little bit of time to settle into the groove of whatever you’re doing. This becomes impossible if you’re constantly distracted or willingly trying to finish multiple things at once. Stop it.

Be confident, but to do so you first have to thoroughly understand what confidence means to you.

Understand and internalize that progress is made in little steps.

We can justify anything to ourselves. We pick certain facts and beliefs and use them to formulate a very logical justification for …pretty much anything. Any one of us can go out and murder children, and no matter how bad we feel about it, we will eventually find countless reasons to justify what we did. This is part of human nature.

Despite what your therapist taught you, when you’re with other people, or in a public place, you likely are being judged and looked at. It’s normal. We all do it all the time. Is it really a problem? Does the judging we do the first second we lay eyes on somebody affect or hurt them? There will always be people who hate you or things you do. They have a right to think you’re retarded or ugly. Why do you care?

Life isn’t a race. You’re not playing against anyone else. Don’t compare yourself to others. This belief can impede everything you do and can sometimes feel impossible to change, even after becoming aware of it.

You can do or be pretty much anything. Excuses are easier to come up with than most other accomplishments, and we naturally choose the path of least resistance. We can learn to speak a new language fluently, or master a new skill, or build something remarkable. We can also convince ourselves that we’re incapable and incompetent.

Life sucks. It will always suck until you decide to believe otherwise.

Change. A big part of changing is just the realization, or belief, that you have changed. All the work you do between point A and point B is done to convince you that you’ve changed. By believing that some change has already occurred, you can greatly speed up the process. For example, if you’d like to be more confident, then just believe (or pretend) that you are, and do what you would do if you were more confident. (I’m not talking about any New-Age shit.)

If you want to lead, take charge. This is easier said than done. Most people will never be able to take charge unless they feel they’re superior to those in their group.

The hardest task is always getting started. There’s rarely a more efficient way than just to stop thinking and start doing. Don’t get stuck in a position where you just sit and think about how to get started, or of any shortcuts. You will end up either never starting, or just getting started the conventional way.

Relax. Things are fine, even when they’re not.